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$ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



LIVING QUESTIONS 



THE AGE. 



DISCUSSED BY 

JAMES B. WALKER, 

AUTHOR OP "THE PHILOSOPHY OP THE PLAN OF SALVATION/' " THE 
DOCTRINE OP THE HOLY SPIRIT," ETC.. ETC. 



IV 



A3.H0 Pi 

PHILADELPHIA: 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 

1877. 

ft" 






Copyright, 1877, by J. B. Lippincott & Co. 



PEEFAOE. 



The Essays and Discussions which are here collected 
were written at different times in the past. Some of 
them have been published in another form ; and as two 
or three of the chapters have relation to the same sub- 
ject there is necessarily some repetition of thought and 
argument, but in each case all the matter introduced 
was deemed necessary to a clear apprehension of the 
topic under consideration. 

The book is a collection of papers on Living Ques- 
tions, each of which was occasioned by discussions 
prevalent at the time when the chapter was written, and 
all of them were designed to illustrate, define, or defend 
the Christian Religion in some of its relations to the 
well-being of mankind. 

3 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

God Revealed in Three Progressive Names or Char- 
acters, from Less to More Perfect .... 7 

CHAPTER II. 

"Written Revelation a Necessity in order to the 
Moral Development and Moral Progress op Man- 
kind 35 

CHAPTER III. 
The Bible in School 75 

CHAPTER IV. 

An Inquiry concerning the Bible Doctrine of Mor- 
tality, Immortality, and Doom 110 

CHAPTER V. 
The Resurrection of Christ 132 



CHAPTER VI. 

Atheism : its Principles, and the Form of its Objec- 
tions to the Christian Religion . . . . 168 

1* 6 



6 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER VII. 

PAGE 

Reconciliation or At-one-ment 220 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Incongruity of the Skeptical and Theological Phil- 
osophy of Liberal Christians as represented by 
Theodore Parker 236 

CHAPTER IX. 

Woman's Sphere by Nature and Grace . . . 269 

CHAPTER X. 
Penal Law 291 

CHAPTER XL 
Harmony of Genesis and Geology 305 



LIVING QUESTIONS OF THE AGE. 



CHAPTER I. 

GOD REVEALED IN THREE PROGRESSIVE NAMES, OR 
CHARACTERS, FROM LESS TO MORE PERFECT. 

" Hallowed be Thy NAME." 

It is agreed that the human mind has its abilities and 
susceptibilities and laws, which, if not so clearly denned, 
yet are as certain and specific in their offices and action 
as the properties and laws of matter. It is agreed, like- 
wise, that the mental is adjusted to the material world 
by means and media which organize the subjective with 
the objective in adapted relations. Clearness of vision 
on this subject is sometimes hindered, it may be, by 
writers on mental philosophy, who seem " to see through 
a glass, darkly." They involve the personal, conscious, 
responsible Ego with the attributes and laws which per- 
tain to it ; yet all agree that whatever differences there 

7 



8 LIVING QUESTIONS 

may be in definitions, the laws and attributes of mind 
exist, and that their methods of action and their adapta- 
tion to accomplish certain ends are definite and specific; 
although we may not always clearly discern all the subtle 
relations connected with the subject. To suppose, there- 
fore, any religion to be true, or to be from the Author 
of the human mind, which is not adapted in its methods 
and manifestations to enlighten and purify that mind, is 
simply absurd. If the Bible does not contain means 
and methods adapted to human nature, it is not true to 
man. But we shall see this more clearly in the end than 
in the beginning. 

It will be the aim of this chapter to show that there is 
a Science of Religion, or rather, that the principles of 
such a science are in the Bible ; and that a vindication 
of the truth of Scripture must, in the end, depend upon 
the deductions of this science. It repeats things pre- 
viously written, with enlargement and more specific 
application. 

While some able writers on scientific subjects, by the 
form of their statements, awaken doubt in regard to the 
question whether the Bible contains a revealed religion, 
yet we are sure that misapprehension in regard to the 
import of the Scriptures, and adhesion by Christian 
teachers to opinions and interpretations promulged amid 
the shadows of darker ages, create a distrust of religion 



OF THE AGE. 9 

far more damaging than are the utterances of the learned 
men which they honestly endeavor to discredit.* 

It is agreed by all well-informed men that in the 
processes of creation organic beings have been advanced 
from lower to higher forms and organs. Whether by 
evolution or by specific creation — to the fact of pro- 
gressive advancement in form and faculty, from the 
mollusk to the mammal, all parties assent. It is like- 
wise agreed that preceding species of organic life gen- 
erally include some forms that are typical, or prophetic 
of the advanced species that are to succeed them. 

Accepting this principle of progress as indicating the 
mode of working which characterizes the Creative Mind, 
it will be gratifying to those who cannot doubt the 

* One of the most injurious mistakes of religious teachers is that 
of amalgamating the three Dispensations into one system of duty. 
It leads ministers to apologize for sin and eulogize character which 
was righteous according to Moses, but is sinful according to Christ. 
An effort to conform to the laws of the Colonies, the Confederacy, 
and "the United States, as of equal validity in our time, would not 
be so absurd and injurious as the effort to mix and amalgamate into 
one the three progressive yet distinct Dispensations of Divine 
Kevelation. The ground principles, of course, are the same in all 
dispensations of law, and the Ten Commandments are funda- 
mental in all legislation ; but with progress of knowledge in a 
state there is progress of responsibility ; and laws must be adjusted 
to the advancement of society. 

r . 



10 LIVING QUESTIONS 

deductions of geological science to find an analogous 
series of development in the processes of Eevelation. 
And if any, not having the fear of Butler before their 
eyes, think fit to doubt the value of analogy from the 
material to the moral, then we say that the exposition 
which we are about to propound is, in itself, sustained 
by an induction of facts which evince that the scheme of 
progress in Revelation is as demonstrable, nay, more so, 
than it is in the series of animated nature. 

EVOLUTION* OF THE DIVIDE CHAEACTEE. 

The Bible affirms three Dispensations in which Truth 
has been developed progressively from the less to the 
more perfect, both in light and purity. These three, for 
the present, may be designated : 1st, the Patriarchal, or 
Dispensation of Creation ; 2d, the Mosaic, or Dispensa- 
tion of Law; 3d, the Christian, or Dispensation of 
Truth and Love. By involving these three, which the 
Bible expressly forbids, and seeking for perfect Truth 
and Love in each, good men do constant injury to the 
cause they endeavor to promote. 

* We use the word evolution in its proper sense. God was then 
what He is now ; hut His character was not fully revealed. 



OF THE AGE. 11 

First Dispensation. 

The attributes of God revealed in the First Dispensa- 
tion were only His natural attributes — " eternal power 
and Godhead" — those which may be deduced from 
nature — Intelligence to design and Power to produce 
and govern the things that are made. The moral attri- 
butes of the Godhead — conscience and affection, right- 
eousness and love — were only partially revealed in this 
First Dispensation. God as revealed by creation and in 
creation, was declared to be the One proper object of 
worship and obedience. Something was gained by this : 
— it antagonized creature worship, and directed the 
natural religious emotions of men to the God of Nature. 

Under the Dispensation of Creation, therefore, the 
Bible tells us that God was known only as El Shaddai 
(Heb.), God Almighty. This much only was included 
in the meaning of the word by which His character was 
revealed to the patriarchs. This statement is important, 
and is sustained by the best-informed Hebrew scholars, 
such as Dr. William Smith, classical examiner in the 
University of London, and many others. Dr. Smith 
says "the Hebrew form, El Shaddai, properly describes 
God in that character in which He is exhibited to all men 
in His works, as the Creator, Sustainer, and Supreme 
Governor of the World ; hence it is used to denote any 



12 LIVING QUESTIONS 

being believed in and worshipped as God." The sacred 
name El and its plural Elohim are not only ante-Mosaic 
but ante-Abrahamic, and were common as designating 
the object of worship in the region of the Euphrates and 
Mediterranean in the earliest period. The name of the 
Deity in those regions was soon corrupted and took on 
plural forms. The Elohim of the Hebrews and Baalim 
of the Phoenicians are cognate plurals used by tribes 
originating in the same region, and about the same 
period of prehistoric time. Perhaps the plural is the 
form that the objects of nature suggest to the senses. 
Both the singular and plural forms are in the Book of 
Job, the author of which, an Idumean Arab, wrote 
before the time of Abraham, and about the time when 
plural designations of the Deity were becoming preva- 
lent. This probably was the occasion of the removal 
of Abraham from Mesopotamia, where idolatry had 
become prevalent, to Canaan, where the One God — El 
Shaddai — was still worshipped, as may be seen in the 
case of Melchizedek, and the prefix to the name of Abra- 
ham's house-steward, El-iezer of Damascus. -Thence- 
forward until, and perhaps during the bondage in Egypt, 
El Shaddai, the Almighty Creator and Ruler, was wor- 
shipped as the true God, if not as the only God, by the 
Hebrew people. Transcribers occasionally interpolated 
the later Divine Name, Jehovah, but the Law-giver 



OF THE AGE. 13 

states authoritatively that the name indicating Power 
and Providence was the only name known to worship- 
pers daring the First Dispensation.* This name was 
recognized even on the cross. There Mercy implored 
Power in the agonizing beseechment, " Eloi ! Eloi ! 
lama sabachthani." 

Second Dispensation, 

When the Second Dispensation, the Dispensation of 
Law, was about to be inaugurated, the people were ex- 
plicitly informed that the character of God about to be 
unfolded to them was in advance of what was known 
to their progenitors. The God-head of Power and 
Providence, worshipped in the First Dispensation, was 
now to be clothed with the attributes Justice and Mercy; 
hence He reveals Himself as the Almighty God wor- 
shipped by the patriarchs, but in a new Name, or 
character. He instructs the Law-giver to announce to 
the new nation the name Jehovah (Ex. vi, 3) : " The 
Almighty — El Shaddai — spake unto Moses, I am Je- 
hovah : I appeared unto Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob by 
the name God Almighty, but by my name Jehovah 
was I not known unto them." The contents of this 
new name was declared unto Moses at the initiation 

* Ex. vi, 3. 
2 



14 LIVING QUESTIONS 

of the Second Dispensation, and the ritual service was 
appended in order to unfold the character which it 
contained. The attributes of the new character were 
announced literally as follows : " Jehovah, Jehovah, the 
Almighty is merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and 
abundant in goodness and truth ; keeping mercy for 
thousands ; forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin, 
and that will by no means clear the guilty ; visiting the 
iniquities of the fathers upon the children, and upon the 
children's children, unto the third and fourth genera- 
tion." This definition gives the attributes of the Divine 
Being worshipped during the existence of the Mosaic 
Economy ; and this was the character in which He was 
worshipped and obeyed until Truth and Love came by 
Jesus Christ, and a third name* advanced to the 
ultimate was revealed for the worship of men. 

But the righteousness of the legal dispensation of 
Moses was the righteousness natural to man, not the 
" righteousness of the kingdom of heaven" as taught by 
Christ. The law of retaliation and the law that might 

* It will make the subject of the Divine Name more intelligible 
to the reader if he will recognize, what is no doubt true, t.e., that 
Moses used the word name in the Egyptian sense in which he 
was educated, and which the Israelites understood; viz., an oval 
containing signs, declaring the personal character of the reigning 
sovereigns. On slabs in the Louvre and British Museum, Kamses 
II. is figured worshipping before his own name. 



OF THE AGE. 15 

gives right are laws of Gocl in and over nature; and 
the Second Dispensation, although a development out of 
the First, and an advance from the First, was not designed 
to elevate men above these natural laws. The character 
of God, revealed in His second Name, recognized the 
enforcement rather than the abrogation of the law of the 
strongest and the law of retaliation. Jehovah- Almighty 
was a God of mercy, pardoning the iniquity of those 
who worshipped and obeyed Him ; but upon His ene- 
mies He " visited the iniquities of the fathers upon the 
children, and upon the children's children, unto the 
third and fourth generation." 

The natural impulse of retaliation, which God still 
maintains in the realm of nature, was recognized in the 
contents of the Divine Name of the Second Dispensation, 
and was codified and executed by Moses. The Jews 
were bound thereby to its observance; hence in their 
wars they slay parent and child ; and in their songs they 
sing the praises of those who destroy by violence their 
enemies, and the wives and children of their enemies. 
But while they do this, they explicitly recognize the 
fact that they do it in accordance with what their 
enemies had done to them, and as being, therefore, ac- 
ceptable to Jehovah, who " visited the iniquity of the 
fathers upon the children." Thus King David, who 
was loyal to the law, prays (Ps. cix), " Let his children 



16 LIVING QUESTIONS 

be fatherless, and his wife a widow," * * * "because 
that he remembered not to show mercy, but persecuted 
the poor and needy man." And another psalmist says 
(Ps. cxxxvii, 8, 9), " O daughter of Babylon, who art 
to be destroyed ; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee 
as thou hast served us : happy shall he be, that taketh 
and dasheth thy little ones against the stones." Thus 
these cruelties are avowed in the Second Dispensation 
as sanctioned by Jehovah, and by the natural law of 
retaliation. 

While, therefore, the Jews, occupying a position be- 
tween nature and grace, were raised above the laws of 
nature in some respects and subjected to them in others, 
reason sanctions the opinion that they were advanced 
only so far and so fast as the moral attributes of the 
human mind can be moulded into higher qualities and 
habits."* " God legislates for species, not for individuals." 
Better — Law is for species, providence for individuals ; 
and the public mind can make progress only by slow 
advances, and these advances aided by written language, 
after its signs have a settled significance. By this 
means alone, as the mind is made, experience of the 
past may be accumulated as a basis of progress in the 
future. To this stage the Eastern people had attained 
in the time of Moses. In this case, and in all others, 
the social nature of mind must be destroyed or the law 



OF THE AGE. 17 

of progressive advance in knowledge must be observed ; 
observed even in the case of Divine interposition to 
promote national advancement. 

Third Dispensation. 

The Third, or Christian Dispensation, again revealed 
a new name, or character of God, declared to be in 
advance of, or rather in addition to, the knowledge of 
previous dispensations. The complete manifestation of 
the Divine character was by Jesus Christ. In Him, and 
by Him, the glorious crowning attributes of Love and 
Truth were fully revealed. " The law came by Moses, 
but Grace and Truth by Jesus Christ." The doctrine 
that by Christ alone the Divine Character is fully mani- 
fested, is so patent in the New Testament that it is 
strange how this essential truth of religion has been 
misapprehended, or rather, not apprehended at all. 
"The light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness 
apprehendeth it not." The fact that Jesus professes 
to be a new name of God is surely revealed in the Third 
Dispensation. He claims for Himself that He comes to 
the world in the Divine Name, and to reveal the Divine 
Nature (John v, 43), "I am come in my Father's 
Name, and ye receive me not." He manifested the 
Divine Character and they rejected it. Theologians 

2* 



18 LIVING QUESTIONS 

interpret this into the sense that Christ claimed to come 
by the authority of the Father; but this exegesis is 
rendered invalid by the words of Christ which follow : 
" If another shall come in his own name (manifesting a 
selfish and aspiring character like your own), him will 
ye receive." The plain import is that which Christ 
and the apostles constantly preached (John xii, 44), that 
in rejecting Christ men rejected the Father, and in re- 
ceiving Him they received the Father. 

In the beginning of His ministry Jesus announced His 
relation to the Father in phraseology that is surely absurd 
in any other interpretation than the one herein pro- 
pounded. He said (Matt, xi, 27), " No man knoweth 
the Son but the Father; and no man knoweth the 
Father but the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son 
will reveal Him." That is, the Son's nature (not 
God and man, as the catechisms say, but God in man, 
as the Scriptures say) — the Divine in the human, is 
not fully revealed, but is known only to the Father ; 
but the Father's nature, known only to the Son, is 
fully revealed. This is an explicit and pregnant state- 
ment, absurd in all senses but the true one. 

But as Jesus drew near the manifestation of love that 
fulfilled His mission. His statements on this subject were 
explicit and complete. The Divine Love which had 
been exhibited in the life of Christ culminated in His 



OF THE AGE. 19 

passion and self-sacrifice. Hence the apostles were re- 
ferred to a period after the revelation of the Divine 
Name should be completed for the full light then to 
be revealed; and for the advance in faith, and the 
change in the form of prayer, which it required. Re- 
ferring to the completeness of the work given Him to 
do, Jesus said (John xvii, 6), " Father, I have manifested 
thy name unto the men which thou hast given me out 
of the world." And immediately following, in the last 
words of prayer and instruction spoken in the presence 
of His disciples, He said (John xvii, 26), " And I have 
declared (Gr. gnorizo — made known) unto them thy 
name, and will declare it : that the love wherewith thou 
hast loved me may be in them, and I in them." That 
is, Jesus, before His sacrifice, had revealed the Divine 
Character in part, and by His sacrifice would reveal it 
wholly to the men who were to instruct the world in 
the knowledge of God. And He further promised that 
after the cross, when the Holy Spirit should come in 
His personality, or in Scripture phrase, " when He should 
send the Holy Ghost in His own name" as the spiritual 
Christ, then the Divine Character would be fully re- 
vealed. The sum of the doctrine is, Christ revealed the 
Father's Name through His humanity, and the Holy 
Spirit came in the personality of Jesus, and revealed the 
name that was in Christ to his people. As He said, 



20 LIVING QUESTIONS 

" When the Spirit of Truth is come He shall not speak 
of Himself, but He shall glorify me, for He shall receive 
of mine and show it unto you ; all things that the Father 
hath are mine ; therefore said I, He shall take of mine, 
and shall show it unto you." 

These words of Jesus are striking, explicit, conclusive 
in regard to the doctrine of this exposition. 

The perfect manifestation of the new name in the 
third, or Christian Dispensation, being thus developed, 
Jesus instructs them and us not to pray any longer to 
God, as His name, or character, was revealed in the Old 
Testament, but to God as revealed in Him.* Hitherto, 
as the Old Testament was not yet superseded, they had 
prayed to Jehovah, as revealed by Moses. But (John 
xvi, 23) "in that day," etc., after the cross, "ye shall 
ask me nothing, but whatsoever ye shall ask the Father 
in my name (viewing Him in My Character), He will 
give it you." And (John xiv, 13) "whatsoever ye ask 
the Father in my name, I will do it." And again, 
"Hitherto ye have asked nothing in my name; ask 
and receive, that your joy may be full." That is, the 
fulness of love in the Godhead, as revealed in Him, 

* This prospective adjustment of the duty of prayer to the New 
Name when it should he fully revealed, is a striking proof that 
Christ worked according to a plan of salvation not then fully de- 
veloped. 



OF THE AGE. 21 

would fill them with peace and joy, which faith in the 
name Jehovah, as revealed to Moses, could not do. 
The same truth he presents in different phraseology, 
and speaks of its efficacy in a different application. In 
view of the persecutions and distresses to which they 
would be subjected, he says (John xvi, 1), " Let not 
your heart be troubled : ye believe in God, believe also 
in me." That is, If ye would have' strength and solace 
in trouble, believe not only in Jehovah as revealed in 
the Second Dispensation, but add to this the char- 
acter of the Father in heaven as it is revealed in 
me ; then what the law could not do, faith in Love 
will accomplish. 

The apostles understood Jesus in the sense of this 
exposition. The two chief writers of the apostolic let- 
ters immediately affirm the doctrine of the Godhead in 
Christ, and announce faith in Him as giving the only 
true knowledge of God. Peter writes (1 Pet. i, 21), 
"By Christ ye believe in God, that raised Him up from 
the dead, and gave Him glory ; that your faith and hope 
might be in God" Paul says (2 Cor. iv, 6), "God, 
who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath 
shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge 
of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." 

Jesus constantly claimed that the Father's true attri- 
butes were in Himself (John xvi, 15), "All things that 



22 LIVING QUESTIONS 

the Father hath are mine ;" (John xiv, 7), " If ye had 
known me, ye should have known my Father also ;" 
" The Father that dwelleth in me, He doeth the works 
and speaketh the words/ 7 

Furthermore, and finally, this revelation in the Third 
Dispensation of the third name of God, including the 
attributes of the two previous names, but perfected in 
the third, is declared to be the saving power for the 
human soul; and that there is no Eternal life except 
by faith in God as thus revealed : (Acts iv, 12), " There 
is none other name given under the heavens among men 
whereby they must be saved;" (John vi, 44), " No man 
can come unto the Father but by me ;" (John iii, 18), 
" Men are condemned already who do not believe in the 
NAME of the only begotten Son of God;" (Col. iii, 17), 
and " whatsoever ye do, do all in the NAME of Jesus 
Christ, giving thanks to God and the Father, by Him;" 
(John xii, 44), "He that believeth on me, believeth 
not on me, but on Him that sent me." There is no 
meaning in such passages ; they are absurd, unless faith 
in Christ according to the Scriptures is faith in God 
revealed in Christ, and not in man the revealer. 

As a consummate proclamation of the doctrine by 
which men enter into Life, it is inscribed in the words 
of Jesus over the portals of the kingdom of heaven : 
" Go ye into all the world, teach all nations, baptizing 



OF THE AGE. 23 

them into the NAME of the Father, and the Son, and 
the Holy Ghost." One name successively involved 
and evolved in the Dispensations — El Shaddai — Jeho- 
vah — JESUS — the Pleroma manifested in the Third 
name, and efficaciously adapted as Father, Son, and 
Holy Spirit to the needs of the human mind. 

Old Testament Confirmation. 

There is abundant testimony both by the record and by 
a self-evidencing philosophy to sustain the preceding ex- 
position of the Doctrine of the Divine Name. Testi- 
mony confirming its truth as clearly as the different 
parts of a system show the unity of the plan. The 
First Dispensation, as its central interest, relates to 
families; hence home gossip and home life would be 
its chief topic of concern. It would have a literature 
portraying the childish and clannish and selfish phases 
of thought in the early families of men. The " endless 
genealogies and old wives' fables," spoken of by Paul, 
maternal partialities and cunning, tales unfit to be read, 
and conduct unfit to be tolerated in our time, would be 
the current talk and tradition natural to the Dispensa- 
tion of Nature. Such, the Bible informs us, were chief 
characteristics of the worshippers of the First Dispensa- 
tion. Any other record would be suspicious. A true 



24 LIVING QUESTIONS 

picture of what was true to the men of these times 
must be composed in part of lustful and superstitious 
incidents. Those who object to this record assume the 
untenable position that God was to the Abrahamic wor- 
shippers what He is to us : and that the rude tent life 
of the early nomads can be judged by our New Testa- 
ment civilization. 

The Second Dispensation — that of the struggling 
infancy of the nation — w T ould naturally have its fabu- 
lous period; as all infant nations, in the absence of 
enlightened instruction and religious records, must 
necessarily have. The Books of the Law, preserved 
only in some of the priestly families, would in the 
strife and varying fortunes of the tribes become scarce 
and their contents unknown ; and superstition and the 
marvellous would necessarily mingle largely with their 
fealty to Jehovah. Such was the period of the Judges. 
The record tells us (1 Sam. iii, 1), " The Word of the 
Lord was precious in those days; there was no open 
vision." The fabulous aspect of some of the sketches 
between Joshua and Saul exhibits a true and natural 
aspect of the national life of the period. If it w 7 ere 
otherwise it would imply a continuous miracle, and 
therefore would not be true, because a miracle continued 
is a natural law. Whether a true record of a fabulous 
age is by Divine supervision, theologians may deter- 



OF THE AGE. 25 

mine. It teaches, at least, that where there is no reve- 
lation superstition is the natural product of the human 
mind. An analogous condition followed the introduc- 
tion of the Christian Dispensation. The territory over 
which a knowledge of the Sacred Writings had existed 
was harassed and divided by contending sects and 
states. The Scriptures of the New Testament were 
mostly hidden in a dead language ; and the dark ages 
of Papal fable and superstition ensued. Luther found 
a Bible in his convent. It enlightened his mind, and 
through him the Reformation was introduced, which 
closed the fabulous age of Christianity for those who 
received it, as finding the Book of the Law in the 
temple, by King Josiah, closed the fabulous age of the 
Second Dispensation. These records of superstitions 
are the natural history of the development of the re- 
ligious element of the human mind in the absence of 
Written Revelation. 

In the geological formations there are prophetic types 
of succeeding forms. This law is better defined in 
Revelation than in geology. The trial of Abraham, in 
the call to sacrifice his son Isaac, is a marked incident 
of the First Dispensation, prophetic of the vicarious 
sacrifices in the Dispensation of Moses. Theologians 
have missed its import and thereby done injury. There 
is evidence that the sacrifice of the first-born was not an 
b 3 



26 LIVING QUESTIONS 

uncommon horror in the time of Abraham. The patri- 
arch, without any revelation of the Divine Character 
beyond what was given in the dispensation of creation, 
could not know but that God — El Shaddai — would be 
pleased with such a sacrifice. Nothing in his Dispensa- 
tion had instructed him to the contrary. By this event 
Abraham was enlightened in regard to the Divine Clem- 
ency. He was taught that human sacrifices were not 
acceptable to God ; and the idea created by the substitu- 
tion was a type in the patriarchal age of the ritual 
vicarious forms of the Mosaic law; and more dimly, 
perhaps, of the great sacrifice which the whole ritual 
system prefigured. The types of the Second Dispensa- 
tion are surely sufficiently marked to satisfy unbiassed 
enquirers that the typal forms of the fossil series of sacred 
history are initiatory conceptions of one Dispensation to 
be fully developed in the succeeding one. 

The Tabernacle itself was not only a pattern of the 
three Dispensations, but a continued prophecy of the 
holier character of the Christian. The Jews did not 
understand its import, and do not until the present day. 
The tent in which was represented the Divine Presence 
was divided into three courts. The outer court, repre- 
senting the First Dispensation, was open to all; wide in 
its embrace as Nature herself. Into the second court the 
Jews only might enter; this symbolized the Second Dis- 



OF THE AGE. 27 

pensation, where Jehovah was worshipped by the people 
to whom His second name was declared. Beyond the 
court of the Jews was the " Holy of Holies" — the 
" Most Holy Place" — separated by a veil from those who 
worshipped in the court of the Jews. Into this " Most 
Holy Place" no Jew might enter, nor even look. The 
High Priest could pass the veil but once a year, and 
then not without an acknowledgment by sacrifice of his 
own sinfulness and that of his people. This third, or 
Most Holy Court, represented the Christian Dispensa- 
tion, veiled from the Jews and from all the world until 
the death of Christ. When Jesus, on the cross, cried, 
" It is finished," the veil of the temple, which separated 
the Holy of Holies, was rent from the top to the bottom 
(Matt, xxvii, 50, 51). The imperfect passed, and perfect 
Truth and Love were inaugurated in the world, " to be 
manifested to all in due time." 

An exhibition of the fact that the Sabbath-day is a 
progressive memorial, advanced with the Three Dis- 
pensations, and adjusted successively to the increasing 
knowledge of the object of worship, will aid in reveal- 
ing its sacred value as a foundation institution in all the 
Dispensations. 

That the Sabbath rest is a constitutional necessity for 
man and laboring animals, physiologists and the inves- 
tigations of the British Parliament long ago determined. 



28 LIVING QUESTIONS 

That it was, and is, a moral necessity, in the development 
of the Divine Dispensations, we shall see by examining 
the relation which it sustained to each of these as they 
succeed each other. Where there are institutions that 
must be sustained by the application of moral means and 
motives, there must be time and place provided to make 
the necessary impressions by the motive-power upon the 
minds of the people. The Divide Name, as progress- 
ively revealed, is the only true object of worship ; but 
there must be a time to contemplate the attributes of the 
Creator's Character, in order that the soul may be assim- 
ilated to the object worshipped. Without such an in- 
stitution worship would cease, and hence the power of 
the Divine Character to elevate and eventually purify 
the human soul would be lost. Hence the institution 
of the Sabbath, ordained in the beginning, would be 
accommodated to the vitalizing aspects of the Divixe 
Name, as successively developed in the Advancing Dis- 
pensations. 

In the First Dispensation, therefore, the Sabbath is 
expressly designated as a memorial of Divine Power in 
the finished Work of Creation. Worshippers were im- 
pressed by the fact that, " In six days God made the 
heavens and the earth." God was worshipped as the 
Creator, and all things had a rest, earth, animal, and 
man. 



OF THE AGE. 29 

In the Second Dispensation, the Sabbath rest is con- 
tinued, bat the memorial, with the name worshipped, is 
changed. The people are to remember the old appoint- 
ment, but to keep the Rest, as a memorial of their deliver- 
ance from servitude in Egypt (Deut. v, 15). Jehovah, 
the Deliverer, is the character worshipped ; and the 
finished deliverance from bondage is the point of grate- 
ful devotion in the worship of the redeemed bondmen. 
Thus from the point ofpower in the First, the memorial 
was changed to the point of power and gratitude in the 
Second Dispensation. 

In the New, or Christian Dispensation, the Sabbath 
memorial and the name worshipped are again changed, 
or rather, advanced. Jesus Christ claims to be " Lord 
of the Sabbath/' to prescribe its observance, and change 
its memorial. Including the preceding, as the new 
name always included preceding attributes, it is changed 
a third time, and fixed in Christian worship as a memo- 
rial of the Finished Work of Redemption. Thus as the 
Dispensations advanced the memorial of the Sabbath 
was advanced one day, and its worship adjusted to the 
successive evolutions of the Divine Nature. 

This exposition of the method of human progress, 
developed in the Scriptures, is not only verified histori- 
cally, but it is strictly scientific, in that it adjusts the 
evolution of the Divine Attributes with the advance- 

3* 



30 LIVING QUESTIONS 

ment of human society. If, therefore, the Bible does 
not contain a revealed religion, it contains, beyond ques- 
tion, a scientific religion, advancing the moral character 
of man by the evolution of the moral attributes of God. 
In this aspect it is not a question of probabilities but 
of facts and laws. And the existence and relation of 
the facts are as certain as the relation and existence of 
the component parts of organic material forms. And 
the types of prophecy, in preceding Dispensations, of an 
advance in succeeding ones, are much more clearly de- 
fined than the prophetic types in the geological series. 
As science is a knowledge of the elements and relations 
of things which characterize the Maker's work, we shall 
find it in the moral and spiritual as certainly as we do 
in the material world. And Bible statements relating to 
the forms and facts of the several Dispensations proper 
are scientific data, as certainly as geological facts are so. 
The writer, therefore, holds the statement as erroneous 
that God did not give us the Bible to teach us science. 
It teaches, not material science, but the highest science 
conceivable : the Science of God and the Soul. 

New Testament Confirmation. 

The difference in Light and Love between the Old 
and New Dispensations, and the advance of the one be- 



OF THE AGE. 31 

yond the other, is affirmed distinctly and authoritatively 
by the New Testament writers. 

The Kingdom of God which was announced by John 
Baptist and Jesus as being at hand, was declared to be 
the outgrowth of preceding Dispensations. It was the 
ripe fruit of what was before immature both in faith 
and duty. There were " first the blade, then the ear, 
then the full corn in the ear." The last being the 
fruitage of the two preceding. The difference was so 
great, that although John Baptist was declared to be 
the greatest of the prophets, and the greatest born of 
women, yet Christ said, "the least in the kingdom 
of heaven was greater than he." "The law and the 
prophets of the Old Dispensation were until John :" 
then the kingdom of heaven, a Dispensation advanced 
beyond the Law and the Prophets, was proclaimed as 
about to supervene. 

Jesus forbade efforts in any wise to incorporate the 
New Dispensation with the Old. He taught that the 
new wine of the New Testament should not be put 
into the old bottles of Moses. That if the New Cloth 
were attached to the Old Garment " the rent would be 
made worse." He expressly repealed the laws of the 
strongest, of divorce, of retaliation, and other natural 
but unchristian laws of Moses ; subjoining to the re- 
peal the statement that such laws were permitted under 



32 LIVING QUESTIONS 

the Second Dispensation, not because they were perfect 
in themselves, but in adaptation to the low condition 
of the people in that Dispensation. Paul labored 
earnestly to detach the early believers from depend- 
ence upon the laws and ceremonies of Moses. And 
the author of the epistle to the Hebrews — Paul or one 
of the priests who early became subject to the faith — 
labored through the entire treatise to represent the Old 
Dispensation as a faith superseded by one "which ex- 
celled in glory." The writer says (Heb. vii, 18, 19), 
" for there is certainly an annulling of the preceding 
requirements, because of the weakness and unprofitable- 
ness thereof. For the Law of Moses made nothing 
perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did, where- 
by we draw nigh unto God." And (Heb. ix, 8) the 
Holy Spirit signified by the courts and veil of the old 
Tabernacle, that " The way unto the Holiest of All was 
not yet made manifest." 

Paul, likewise, in his second letter to the church at 
Corinth (iii, 7, 14), writes, " For even that old Dispen- 
sation, which was made glorious, had no glory in this 
respect, by reason of the New Dispensation which ex- 
celleth; for if that which is done away was glorious, 
much more that which remaineth is glorious." And 
(Gal. iii, 23, 24) "Before faith came, we were kept 
under the Law, shut up unto the faith that afterwards 



OF THE AGE. 33 

should be revealed. Wherefore the Law of Moses was 
our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might 
be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we 
are no longer under a schoolmaster." And (St. John i, 
17) "For the Law was given by Moses, but Grace and 
Truth came by Jesus Christ." 

To such decisive passages, requiring that Old Testa- 
ment teachings and example should not be incorporated 
with the Christian faith, theologians of all classes will 
answer, that the New Testament writers everywhere 
quote the elder Scriptures, and refer to the prophets as 
teaching *ruth and duty. All this is true, but not 
applicable. The " schoolmaster's" teaching was obliga- 
tory, but designed only to prepare men for the High 
School of Christ. Mature men are not subject to a 
schoolmaster. The very passage most frequently ad- 
duced to sanction the use of the Old Testament under 
the New Testament Dispensation, if accepted according 
to its plain import, teaches the transition from the Old 
to the New so plainly that the citation rightly under- 
stood is enlightening and conclusive. Peter says (2 
Peter i, 19), " We have also a more sure word of 
prophecy ; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed ; as 
unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day 
dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts." 

The prophets — the later ones especially — had clearer 



34 LIVING QUESTIONS 

vision of the incoming Perfect than any other men of 
the old time; and they gave the clearest knowledge 
that existed of the anticipated Reign of Righteousness. 
Hence, although the light " shined in a dark place," — 
a darker dispensation — the embryonic Christian Church 
was to take heed to it, until the elements of Christianity 
should be developed into organic activity — until the 
light of the gospel should shine about them and the 
day-star of faith arise in their hearts. Then having 
the outer light of Truth and the inner light of the 
Spirit, they would have but little need of the light 
that shone " in a dark place." They were to take heed 
to it as a guide only, until the gospel day dawned 
and the day-star arose in their hearts, — as a torch, 
which is a proper and only guide in the night, is not 
extinguished, but is useless when the sun rises. 



OF THE AGE. 35 



CHAPTER II. 

WRITTEN REVELATION A NECESSITY IN ORDER TO 
THE MORAL DEVELOPMENT AND MORAL PROGRESS 
OF MANKIND. 

Rationalists and skeptics generally hold that reason, 
including intuitional and reflective reason, is a sufficient 
guide for men in matters relating to God. We cannot 
see how men who are conversant with human history, 
some of whom have made philosophy a study, can adopt 
such an opinion. The highest result that reason can 
give on this subject has been worked out in such a 
variety of circumstances, that a man who fails to learn a 
lesson that all experience teaches must have a will over 
which reason has, in some measure, lost its influence. 

The testimony of universal experience is, that all men 
have an idea of the existence of God, but not of the 
character of God. Men cannot have an intuition of the 
character of God, for the plain reason that a knowledge 
of character implies comparison of qualities, and hence 
requires a process of reason. It is a shallow fallacy in 



36 LIVING QUESTIONS 

philosophy that assumes, as many do, that men have an 
innate idea of the character as well as the being of God. 
The moral duties of men to each other may be learned 
in a good measure by experience, even up to the measure 
of the golden rule. I know the effect which the con- 
duct of another has upon myself. I judge of that con- 
duct, whether it is in itself right or wrong; and hence, 
by this process, I can determine what would be right in 
my neighbor's case, were our circumstances changed. 
Reason is clouded in men, and it is developed slowly in 
nations ; hence, while rules of human morality may be 
developed by reason, yet it is only in the best ages and 
in the highest minds that these higher moral conceptions 
have appeared. But the character of God and the duties 
of man to his Maker are different things. Man with- 
out faith has no immediate experience of the Divine 
character, and having a mixed experience by Providence, 
it is absolutely impossible for reason to clothe the idea 
of God with the moral attributes which belong to the 
Divine nature. 

Now, the universal experience of nations and races of 
men has certified these facts. The highest attainment of 
reason in relation to God has been skepticism, or diver- 
sity. This was the result in India, in Greece, in Rome, 
in France, in Germany, and in America. In all ages 
and nations which have furnished an opportunity for 



OF THE AGE. 37 

the ultimate development of the reason, the results have 
been the same. 

Greece gathered all the gods of all nations into her 
capital city. This was the ultimatum of human reason, 
in the direction of variety. Her philosophers believed 
in a divine being; but, while they doubted of all the 
idolatries of the people, they differed as much among 
themselves as the people did in relation to prevalent 
superstitions. Such was also the development in Rome. 
Tully and others expressed the ultimatum of reason in 
the affirmation, that all things in relation to the gods and 
the future world were matters of doubt. 

Reason reached the same ultimatum in France and 
Germany. Revelation in those countries was either for- 
bidden or perverted. The people followed the prevail- 
ing superstition, while the philosophers reached a skep- 
ticism that was malignant and terrible in its effects on 
human character and human happiness; so terrible, that 
the people who had been seduced by it were glad to take 
refuge again in the stronghold of the old Catholic super- 
stition, as the least of two evils. 

The highest result that reason could attain, unaided 
by revelation, and aided by all the light and experience 
of past ages, was wrought out fairly in France. It was 
a complete triumph of skepticism. Everything con- 
cerning God and man and the future was involved in 

4 



38 LIVING QUESTIONS 

utter doubt. Reason triumphed, and ulti mated in the 
worship of herself, in the form of a profligate woman. 
Reason even doubted her own affirmations; and only 
enough of light was left to see the darkness into which 
she had plunged. 

This the best minds of the age stated, in words full 
of true and solemn portent — words which should teach 
others to recede from the abyss into which these skep- 
tical philosophers looked before they fell.* 

* Diderot, dying after a life of doubt and disappointment, said 
to friends that stood by his couch to close his eyes in the last sleep, 
" I am about to take a leap in the dark." 

The justly-celebrated Rousseau uttered a striking description of 
the results of skepticism, and the moral character and aim of skep- 
tics. It is true to life, and true for all time — a picture of the 
highest product of reason unaided by revelation. 

He said : 

" I have consulted our philosophers, I have perused their books, 
I have examined their several opinions. I have found them all 
proud, positive, and dogmatizing, even in their pretended skepti- 
cism, knowing everything, proving nothing, and ridiculing one 
another ; and this is the only point in which they concur, and in 
which they are right. Daring when they attack, they defend 
themselves without vigor. If you consider their arguments, they 
have none but for destruction ; if you count their number, each 
one is reduced to himself; they never unite but to dispute ; to listen 
to them was not the way to relieve myself from my doubts. I 
conceive that the insufficiency of the human understanding was 
the first cause of this prodigious diversity of sentiment, and that 



OF THE AGE. 39 

In Great Britain and America skepticism cannot be- 
come so prevalent, because in these countries Chris- 
pride was the second. If our philosophers were able to discover 
truth, which of them would interest himself about it? Each of 
them knows that his system is not better established than the 
others ; but he supports it because it is his own : there is not one 
among them who, coming to distinguish truth from falsehood, 
would not prefer his own error to the truth that is discovered by 
another. "Where is the philosopher who, for his own glory, 
would not willingly deceive the whole human race? "Where is 
he who, in the secret of his heart, proposes any oth,er object than 
his own distinction ? Provided he can but raise himself above 
the commonalty, provided he can eclipse his competitor, he has 
reached the summit of his ambition. The great thing for him is 
to think differently from other people. Among believers he is an 
atheist, among atheists a believer. Shun, shun then those who, 
under pretence of explaining nature, sow in the hearts of men the 
most dispiriting doctrines, whose skepticism is far more affirma- 
tive and dogmatical than the decided tone of their adversaries. 
Under pretence of being themselves the only people enlightened, 
they imperiously subject us to their magisterial decisions, and 
would fain palm upon us for the true causes of things the unintel- 
ligible systems they have erected in their own heads ; while they 
overturn, destroy, and trample under foot all that mankind re- 
veres, snatch from the afflicted the only comfort left them in their 
misery ; from the rich and great the only curb that can restrain 
their passions ; tear from the heart all remorse of vice, all hopes 
of virtue, and still boast themselves the benefactors of mankind. 
'Truth,' they say, 'is never hurtful to man.' I believe that as 
well as they, and the same, in my opinion, is a proof that what 
they teach is not the truth." 



40 LIVING QUESTIONS 

tianity is better understood ; and where skepticism does 
prevail, it will seek to attach to itself many of the 
virtues which Christianity has introduced; but the 
result of the unguided reason can in no circumstances 
be anything better than doubt, varied in its form by 
the diversity of the different minds that propagate it. 
Which one of the English skeptics agreed with another 
in respect to the character of God or human duty?* 
Who agrees with Parker or Emerson in America? No 
one ever did or ever can. Skeptics agree in doubt, 
but they cannot agree concerning the things about which 
they doubt. The effort to propound anything positive 
is, in all cases, a failure; and in most cases, as in 
Priestley's form of worship and Parker's philosophy 
of God, the effort is ridiculous as it is futile. The 
wandering mind feels the need of something positive 
in religion ; and having rejected revealed truth, it seeks 
to attain from reason such baseless dogmas as the 
rationalist's " idea, sense, and conception of God." The 
mind of man was made to rest in faith ; and when 
skepticism deprives men of this support, the soul feels 
more of unrest and deprivation than do the heathen, 
who rest in a false faith. Unaided reason can doubt, 
but it cannot affirm anything in relation to God and 
the future that will satisfy the soul. 

* See Leland and Gregory. 



OF THE AGE. 41 

Man was not made to be the victim of skepticism. 
Heathenism is better than this, just as ignorance is 
better than aberration. Revelation was made for man ; 
made to elevate the races progressively, from a state of 
nature to a state of grace ; made to spread from families 
to nations, and finally to reach all mankind. 

But leaving strictures on doubt and negation, which 
are to positive religion as night is to the day, let us look 
at some thoughts which may prepare us more intelligently 
to consider the positive side of the argument, which main- 
tains that the Christian Scriptures are a revelation from 
God, containing the ultimate rule of faith and duty. 

All things are progressive in their development. 
Individually or socially considered, in the life-history 
of things there is infancy, youth, and maturity. "First 
the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear." 
The Scriptures affirm this principle. The family of 
man are subject to this law. There are ages of infancy, 
of youth, and of maturity. The first law would be one 
relating to animal wants, and adapted to the period of 
childhood. Hence the law, "Thou shalt not eat for- 
bidden fruit," as there were no neighbors, and no expe- 
rience ; consequently this was the only adapted law. 

The Second Dispensation would be adapted to man's 
tuition in the next stage of development. Hence the 
Mosaic: which, as pictures in a child's primer, with 

4* 



42 LIVING QUESTIONS 

explanations attached, and a written moral law in the 
briefest form, gave to man a more perfect idea of God 
and of moral duties. 

The third stage would be the ultimate and perfect, 
" the full corn in the ear." 

The first stage, or patriarchal, would develop itself 
from the family into a nation ; the second from the 
nation to all nations. And in this last the law of 
progress is fulfilled. 

Men of the Christian age, together with the knowl- 
edge of their own dispensation, get the knowledge gen- 
erated and transmitted by the two preceding ones. The 
foundation-principles of these were developed into the 
final and perfect form of Christianity. 

The vital importance of the family, especially its law 
of duty and obedience, is developed fully in the First 
Dispensation. Abraham is chosen because he will in- 
struct and command his children, Gen. xviii, 19. In all 
ages of revelation, this important principle needed to 
be understood. Families trained to obey righteous 
authority, and having their consciences and hearts 
nurtured by the admonition and fear of God, are the 
anchor-hope of a free state. Family government and 
instruction that make intelligent, conscientious, and 
obedient children, can alone make men fit for citizen- 
ship in a Republic. Old and impudent superstitions 



OF THE AGE. 43 

adverse to Christian education will have to be over- 
come before liberty and equality can be established on 
the basis of enlightened conscience. 

Man needs to know also the relation of a state, as a 
whole, to the Divine government; that every state has 
its probation; that departure from righteous principle 
will, in the end, bring dissolution and disaster. This 
is the teaching of the national history of Israel. It 
exhibits to all ages the principles upon which God 
administers His government over favored nations, and 
the discipline which they must incur for national offences 
against justice and mercy. 

These three stages of development are likewise ex- 
hibited in the moral progress of individuals. There is 
first the natural, when animal appetite governs. Second, 
the intellectual period of growth, when law and penalty 
govern. Third, for those who rise to it, a dispensation 
of love and fruit-bearing, when faith governs. 

There are likewise the lineaments of these three stages 
in the advance of each individual that enters the king- 
dom of heaven on earth. An illustration is furnished 
in the experience of Paul. Before he became a Jew 
spiritually, i.e., before he apprehended the law as being 
from God, and obligatory upon his mind, he w T as free 
from a sense of sin ; he was sensual, governed by his 
own natural impulses. Second, when he realized the 



44 LIVING QUESTIONS 

spirituality of the law, he became a true Pharisee ; felt 
condemned for sin ; and endeavored to escape condem- 
nation by works of law. Third, he was made free by 
faith ; and that which before was a work of the intel- 
lect and will, without inward love and impulse, now 
became easy and holy, being prompted by love which 
was produced by faith in Christ. Through this pro- 
cess, in some degree, passes every individual who rises 
from nature through conviction into grace. 

Hence also the three developments of the name 
of Jehovah. Al-Shaddai, God of nature or power. 
Second, Jehovah. A development of the same name 
known to the fathers, Ex. vi, 3; but, in the Second 
Dispensation, to be changed from Al-Shaddai to Jeho- 
vah, who now developed himself in moral law and 
tuition. In the Third, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, 
the God of power, and developed by law and tuition 
into the God of grace. Thus by the progressive de- 
velopment of the Divine character, has the human 
mind been raised by faith in that character through 
the first and second, into the third and ultimate state 
of knowledge. A knowledge of the Divine love in 
Christ Jesus. What the family of mankind needs is 
more diffusive love, and this can be increased on earth 
only by drawing love into human hearts by faith in 
Christ, and thence diffusing it to the needy. 



OF THE AGE. 45 

The Bible claims that its' mission is to enlighten the 
world, and to advance the moral interests of the human 
family. It has been shown/ as we think, that human 
nature is so constituted, that revealed religion is neces- 
sary in order to the moral development of our race. 
Do historical facts verify this conclusion ? 

The Bible claims to be both light and power in the 
moral progress of the world. It is, however, sometimes 
said that the orthodox party claims more for the Bible 
than it claims for itself. This may be true when 
some eulogists of revelation claim for it extraordinary 
excellences of style, and other extrinsic matters of that 
sort. But it is not true in regard to the claim of moral 
light and power. The Bible does claim these, and 
all friends of revelation should claim them for it. 
Notice this. 

The Old Testament writers speak of their own Dis- 
pensation as the light of their age ; and the minds of 
the old prophets glow with inspiration when they refer 
to the increased light and purity of Messiah's age, an 
age when " the light of the moon was to be as the light 
of the sun, and the sun itself Avould shine with seven- 
fold effulgence." "To the people that sat in darkness 
and in the valley and the shadow of death" they de- 
clared that a " light would spring up." About the 
last utterance of the last of the prophets refers to the 



46 LIVING QUESTIONS 

purifying power of the Messiah's Dispensation, and to 
the spiritual light which would be revealed in his day. 
Mai. iii, 1, 2: "Behold, I will send my messenger, 
[John Baptist,] and he shall prepare the way before 
me: and the Lord, [Messiah,] whom ye seek, shall 
suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of 
the covenant, whom ye delight in : behold, he shall 
come, saith the Lord of hosts. But who may abide 
the day of his coming? and who shall stand when 
he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like 
fuller's soap: and he shall sit as a refiner and puri- 
fier of silver." That is, the Messiah's Dispensation 
would purify and elevate those who were subjects of 
its influence. And ch. iv, 2, 3, while the wicked would 
be condemned and destroyed, "to those who feared the 
Lord, the Sun of righteousness would arise with healing 
in his beams." 

To this light of the Old Dispensation the people w T ho 
first heard the gospel, and who lived in the transition 
period, from the death of Christ to the fall of Jerusa- 
lem, were exhorted to take heed. Although it shone 
in a darker dispensation, yet it was a " lamp" in the 
path that led to a clearer manifestation of Divine love 
and truth. This view of the relations of the Old and 
New Testament light the Apostle Peter beautifully 
expresses in his second letter, ch. i, 19, "We have 



OF THE AGE. 47 

also a more sure word of prophecy ; whereunto ye do 
well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in 
a dark place, [age,] until the day dawn, and the day- 
star [of the gospel dispensation] arise in your hearts." 
The Old Testament Dispensation, as interpreted by the 
inspired prophets, was as a light in the night. The 
New Dispensation was daylight, which was then 
dawning in the hearts of believers. They were to 
take heed to the one till the other was inaugurated. 

John Baptist, the forerunner of Jesus, who came to 
reprove his nation and to call them to repentance, as 
the proper preparation for the reign of Messiah, was 
called " a burning and a shining light." The first 
prophetic announcement of the character of Jesus, 
after his advent, by the pious Simeon, was that he 
should be a a light to enlighten the Gentiles, and the 
glory of his people Israel," and that he 'would "be 
set for the fall, [by repentance,] and rising again, [to 
a higher moral state,] of many in Israel." That is, 
the Gentile nations should be enlightened by Christ, 
and " many" of the Jewish nation would feel con- 
demned in the light of his dispensation, and would 
rise again into the higher moral condition which it 
required. 

John, although himself called a light, affirmed that 
he was not that light which was to redeem a portion 



48 LIVING QUESTIONS 

of the Jewish people and enlighten the Gentile nations. 
" He was not that light, but w T as sent to bear witness 
of that light;" "that was the true light that enlight- 
eneth every man that cometh into the world/' both 
Jew and Gentile. 

Jesus Himself claimed to be "the light of the world." 
" I am," said He, " come a light unto the world, that 
whosoever believeth in me should not abide in dark- 
ness." " I am the light of the world ; he that fol- 
loweth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have 
the light of life." The truth which he declared as the 
basis of condemnation was, that " light had come into 
the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the 
light, because their deeds were evil." 

The apostles apprehended distinctly that the in- 
creased light of revelation was the reforming and the 
elevating pow T er of the nations. They not only under- 
stood the fact that revelation was the moral life and 
light of men, but they understood the relations of this 
fact, and its place in the moral progress of the world. 
" The darkness," said they, " is past, and the true light 
now shineth." They speak of the church of Christ 
as " the light of the w T orld," and Christians as " the 
Children of the Light." There is, probably, no other 
topic which suggests illustrations to the minds of the 
sacred writers more varied and beautiful than this 



OF THE AGE. 49 

one ; and there is none other which conveys to us 
truth of more vital importance. There is, 'in my 
opinion, no figures in human language more striking 
than those which the inspired writers use in presenting 
truth under the symbol of light, not only in the past 
and present, but in the apocalyptic visions of the future. 
What can be more striking than the figures of the 
Revelator? Forecasting the period of the Reforma- 
tion, he speaks of the " two witnesses," the Old and 
New Testaments, which, clothed in sackcloth, were 
lying without vitality in the streets ; these are elevated 
into the heavens, from which position they attract the 
attention of men, and send the rays of the Reforma- 
tion down into their hearts. The church of Christ, 
witnessing for truth, is spoken of as "A woman, 
clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet ; 
and upon her head a crown of twelve stars." 

But I need not dwell upon the fact that the Scriptures 
do claim that the truth of revelation is the moral light 
of the world. 

There is another fact connected with this subject ; one 
which the cursory reader overlooks, but it is one which 
relates to the vital power of truth : the Scriptures claim 
that there is not only light but life in the truth which 
they reveal. 

To see an evil is one thing ; to lead men to feel the 



50 • LIVING QUESTIONS 

turpitude of evil, in itself, in themselves, and in the 
sight of God, is quite another thing. "We have already 
noticed this fact. It will not be necessary to dwell on 
it here. Suffice it to say, that in order to the moral 
progress of men two things are necessary : first, that 
men should see the evil ; and, second, that they should 
feel such a sense of the evil as will lead them to turn from 
it and seek a higher life. Light is necessary to see the 
evil. A sense of God and duty with that light is neces- 
sary to lead men from the evils which the light reveals. 

Now, this reproving or convicting power accompanies 
the light of revealed religion. There may be intellec- 
tual culture where there is no moral purity. The first 
benefit is scarcely a blessing without the last. A 
knowledge of right and duty only renders one a 
greater hypocrite unless he have moral sense and 
moral life sufficient to conform to his own convictions. 
Now, this reproving power, which leads men to feel 
the evil of sins which they perceive, the Scriptures 
claim for themselves as a spiritual efficacy which ac- 
companies revealed truth. Let us notice and illustrate 
this fact. 

We have shown elsewhere, and desire to repeat it 
frequently, that truth has power over the moral nature 
of men only so far as a sense of God and duty is in 
it. There needs to be life as well as light in that truth 



OF THE AGE. 51 

which has reforming power in the world. This life- 
power the sacred writers claim as belonging to the 
gospel. It is a power by which men feel reproved or 
condemned for the sins which truth reveals to them, a 
power which leads them to disapprove evils in them- 
selves and others " made manifest by the light.' 7 

Christ is spoken of as being not only the " light," 
but the " life" of men. The second Adam was a " life- 
giving" as well as a " light-giving" Spirit. " The 
words that I speak unto you," said Jesus, " they are 
spirit and they are life." " I am the light of the 
world. He that followeth me shall not walk in dark- 
ness, but shall have the light of life." " I am the 
way, the truth, and the life." Now, this life-power is 
the glory of the gospel. Without this, the intellect 
may be enlightened, while the conscience is inefficient 
and the heart corrupt. Hence Jesus said, " Ye will 
not come unto me lest your deeds should be reproved." 
The one thing needful, after the understanding is en- 
lightened in relation to moral duties, is this reproving 
power in the conscience of men, which produces "re- 
pentance unto life." Christ taught that when the 
Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, should come into 
the world, He would persuade or reprove the w r orld of 
sin, righteousness, and judgment. 

The disciples understood that without this vital power 



52 LIVING QUESTIONS 

the mere intellectual light of truth would increase sin 
rather than produce holiness. Hence they said, " Christ 
hath made us ministers of the New Testament ; not of 
the letter, but of the spirit ; for the letter killeth, but the 
spirit giveth life" Paul, in his letter to the Christians 
at Ephesus, states with great distinctness the effect and 
the necessity of gospel truth, both as an enlightening 
and reproving power, v, 13. " All things that are re- 
proved are made manifest by the light : for whatsoever 
doth make manifest is light. Wherefore [the gospel 
saith] Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the 
dead, and Christ shall give thee light." That is, the 
light of revealed religion shows the moral evils which 
exist in the heart and in the world ; and the life-power 
of the Spirit accompanying that light leads us to feel 
the guilt of these evils. 

Notice, now, an instance of the influence and practical 
operation of this moral power of truth, as it affected the 
reformation of the world in the apostolic age. The same 
principle we shall see is applicable in all other cases, and 
in all time. 

Take the case of the city of Ephesus, to the Christian 
inhabitants of which Paul writes the passage we have 
quoted. The apostle describes this city as sitting in 
darkness, and her citizens as corrupted by the practice 
of the most debasing vices. He says to the Christians, 



OF THE AGE. 53 

" Ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in 
the Lord : walk as children of the light, and have no 
fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but 
rather reprove them ; for it is a shame even to speak of 
those things which are done of them in secret." Such 
was the celebrated city of Ephesus when the light and 
life-power of the gospel reached her. 

Intellectual light was not what the men of Ephesus 
needed. They lived in the Augustan age, the noon- 
day of ancient civilization. They lived when the light 
of reason had reached its meridian in the ancient world. 
They lived in the Eclectic age, when the best thoughts 
were collected from Plato and all the great thinkers that 
had gone before. It was the age of Seneca and Pliny, 
of Tacitus, Josephus, and Plutarch, the crowning authors 
of the ancient literature, in morals, history, science, and 
religion. 

And this city of Ephesus was one of the points in 
Asia where art and letters had done all they could do 
for human culture. Diana of the Ephesians was one 
of the purest shrines at which the old world worshipped; 
and her temple was one of the most magnificent struc- 
tures that was ever erected and adorned by human 
hands. About the time that Paul wrote the passage 
which we have quoted, describing the appalling cor- 
ruption which prevailed in the city, Pliny, one of the 



54 LIVING QUESTIONS 

wisest and most refined men of his age, speaks of Ephe- 
sus as " one of the luminaries of Asia." The one con- 
sidered her as full of light, the other looked upon her 
as full of darkness. Both views were true, according 
to the standard by which the writers formed their judg- 
ment. Pliny saw her as the seat of the best civilization 
and the highest culture that a people without revelation 
had ever attained. But, underneath the glare of vain- 
glory, Paul saw a degree of corruption that defiled her 
very heart. She was "a whited sepulchre, full of dead 
men's bones." The light that was in her was dark- 
ness. Those who lived in it said, " Behold, we see !" 
and the baptism of their sacred rites, by which they 
sought to purify themselves, only infected them with 
baser pollution. 

What was needed, now, in order to reform and save 
this people? Was it civilization? This they had at- 
tained in the highest degree which unaided reason could 
achieve. Was it philosophy ? Some of the most cele- 
brated schools were in this city. Was it perfection of 
art ? The best models of the age, some of which still 
exist as artistic wonders for the moderns, were at Ephe- 
sus; and it is recorded that the personal accomplish- 
ments and taste of her citizens were celebrated through- 
out surrounding regions. All these she had, as many 
cities of modern Europe have still, and yet, having 






OF THE AGE. 55 

eyes, her citizens saw not the prevailing corruption ; 
and having ears, they heard not the sentence of con- 
demnation written against them. 

What they needed, first of all, was light to discern 
the evil nature of sin ; and, second, that personal sense 
of the evil which would lead them to escape from it, 
and endeavor to rescue others. Until they saw their 
sin and felt its evil, they could make no advances in 
moral character. 

Now, Paul affirmed in relation to these men, and to 
this subject, two things — that whatever they saw to be 
evil in their former practice was made manifest to them 
by the moral light of the gospel, and that whatsoever 
makes sin manifest, as the gospel does, is light.* 

Once more. Notice that this state of intellectual cul- 
ture and moral blindness was not confined to the old 
world. The same is true of the moderns; although 
our own country does not remind one of the union 
between culture and sin, as do the cities of Europe. 
The art and intellectual culture of Europe is the cul- 

* Eph. v, 11-14: "And have no fellowship with the unfruitful 
works of darkness, but rather reprove them. For it is a shame 
even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret. 
But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: 
for whatsoever doth make manifest is light. Wherefore he saith, 
Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ 
shall give thee light." 



56 LIVING QUESTIONS 

ture of the few as against the many. Paris, with her 
academy, her columns, her galleries of painting, her stat- 
uary, her cathedrals, her philosophers, her oratorios, her 
taste and fashion, her everything that is deemed a mark 
of high intellectual culture — Paris, with all these, is the 
brothel of nations ; a city where every species of moral 
corruption festers and infects the inhabitants, and spreads 
moral contagion over the Continent. 

I have stood in her galleries at Versailles and the 
Louvre, and felt in my soul that her models of art were 
a curse to the people. They are adapted to gild the 
memory of those who, being corrupt in heart and prof- 
ligate in practice, are now suffering the hell that awaits 
selfish and impure minds. The pictures of the old mas- 
ters, and from them down even to David, sanctify the 
deeds of devils under the name of kings and cardinals. 
Thus the popular mind is led by art to reverence des- 
pots and evil-doers. Their religion is almost as corrupt 
as the orgies of Ephesus, and their moral corruption 
similar to hers. In my opinion, while art might lose 
something, progress and morality would gain much, if 
the next outbreak in Paris should destroy all the Papist 
oratorios and all the public galleries in the city.* What 

* Since the first edition of this book, while the atheistic pom- 
mune held the city, they accomplished in some measure the de- 
struction of art that commemorated evil priests and evil rulers. 



OF THE AGE. 57 

is true of Paris is true likewise of all the great cities of 
the Continent where the people are without the light of 
revelation. Culture and crime prevail together, to some 
extent, even in Protestant cities; but there is as much 
moral difference between the Protestant cities of Phila- 
delphia, Geneva, and Aberdeen on the one hand, and 
Rome, Naples, and New Orleans on the other, as there 
is between twilight and darkness. 

Intellectual culture without Christian culture is a 
painted harlot, who lives in the night ; and, decorated 
in the tinsel of art and letters, allures the weak and the 
wicked to hell. Were there no hope for mankind but 
that which art, letters, and intellectual culture produces, 
despotism and skepticism would reign over the earth, 
and the hope of moral progress, of human freedom, and 
human happiness might be abandoned forever. Men 
might be as cultivated as was Robespierre, and yet 
become as dark-minded and as desperate as he. They 
might be as polished externally as was Webster, the mur- 
derer of Dr. Parkman, while yet internally they might be 
as wicked as he. John Newton had the same mind and 
the same intellectual culture when engaged in the slave- 
trade and in low and vicious practices that he afterward 
possessed when his Christian muse charmed and elevated 
the hearts of all those who listened to him. 

In many and striking forms Christ taught men the 



58 LIVING QUESTIONS 

difference between intellectual and Christian culture. 
The one without the other is " the whited sepulchre," 
"the hidden grave," the darkness or "night" of the 
soul. The one pertains to man's moral nature, his affec- 
tions, and his conscience, the other to his intelligence. 
The one without the other engenders selfishness and 
hypocrisy ;. but intellectual culture, used and sanctified 
by a living conscience and pure affections, secures all 
human good to its possessor, and leads him to labor for 
the good of the world. When the intellect becomes 
consecrated to the work of human elevation, the power 
which gives the impulse and secures permanency is 
generated in the heart and conscience. Men with intel- 
lectual light alone may make advances in social life with- 
out scriptural principles, as they have done often in 
France, South America, and elsewhere ; but without 
moral principle, which gospel faith produces, permanent 
progress is impossible. 

With these principles and discriminations in mind, 
notice some other evidences of the fact that all human 
progress, both ancient and modern, has its origin in the 
truth and power of revealed religion ; and that, without 
this, the hope of reform is fallacious, and if progress 
were attained it could not be permanent. 

It is a historical fact, which has not been sufficiently 
noticed, that human nature is always below the standard 



OF THE AGE. 59 

of revealed religion. This fact indicates the Divine 
origin of revelation. Great discoveries are usually the 
product of preceding ages of thought. One mind in 
the end develops the idea ; but it is the fruitage of the 
age ripened in that particular mind. A pearl is found, 
but the location had been indicated by previous re- 
searches. But revealed religion is something different 
from this. It is separate from and superior to the 
thought of the age. It calls the wisdom of the world 
foolishness, and introduces a new stand-point and start- 
ing-point, around which it gathers what was valuable in 
the old, and destroys the remainder. Hence it will 
always be found true that a struggle is necessary to bring 
up the human mind and keep it up to the level of re- 
vealed religion, and that revealed religion produces that 
struggle. The human mind naturally falls below it; 
hence frequent struggles are necessary to restore it from 
its relapses. Even those who profess to be the friends 
of the Dispensation retrograde so soon as its power is 
in any wise abated, and new applications of the same 
power have to be made to rescue them and bring them 
up again nearer to the requirements of their Dispensation. 
No one will doubt but that the theology of Moses was 
antagonistic to that of Egypt, and to that of all the 
nations with which the Israelites had intercourse. Its 
great aim was to destroy idolatry, to remove physical 



60 LIVING QUESTIONS 

and moral impurities, and establish the worship of one 
true God, Jehovah. But the Jews, although all their 
traditions were in favor of monotheism, and all their 
experiences such as were adapted to drive them from 
idolatry, were constantly falling into the vices and 
idolatries of surrounding nations. Their history is a 
record of sad departures from the purity of the Mosaic 
economy. 

Now, the question is, by what means was the ad- 
vanced system maintained and reformation produced, 
when the people had again dropped down to their natu- 
ral level ? We answer, by the power of revealed truth, 
and by this alone. " Whatsoever was reproved in Israel, 
was made manifest by the light." 

Their defections from monotheism were shown to 
them by referring them to the light of the law of Moses. 
This alone could show them the evil of polytheism, for 
no other system existed in the world that did not favor 
the evil. The evil being revealed by the law, they were 
reproved out of the same law for departing from its re- 
quirements, and in this way alone reformations were 
produced. The instances of reformation by the light 
and power of the revealed religion I need not to enumer- 
ate. The relapses were all recovered, and the nation 
finally delivered from all disposition to idolatry, by the 
Bible, and by the providence of God working in har- 



OF THE AGE. 61 

mony with. the Dispensation, punishing departures and 
encouraging: reform. 

When the nation was almost lost in the surrounding 
darkness, the Eeformation under Josiah was produced 
by the law alone. " The Book" found in the temple, as 
Luther found it afterwards in the convent, was the light 
and power of national progress in both cases. 

In the later periods of the Dispensation, the old 
prophets stood up in the solemn grandeur of their mis- 
sion to reprove the rulers and the people and restore 
them to obedience to the law. The inspired voices of 
Jeremiah, of Isaiah, and Ezekiel are heard in tones of 
sorrow, instruction, and reproof reverberating through 
the nation. They held aloft the law, and showed to the 
people that the judgments of God would come, or had 
come, upon them for departing from it. They gave the 
law a spiritual and practical import ; they enforced it by 
the authority of God, and spoke almost with the tongue 
of an evangelist of a future Messiah. Thus, in the 
light of the law they reproved in the name of God ; and 
if reformation was not produced, they led the people to 
feel that judgment came upon them for disobedience; 
and thus their captivities and sufferings tended finally to 
cure their errors. 

By this process, and this alone, was the worship of one 
God at length established in the Jewish nation and 



62 LIVING QUESTIONS 

finally in the world. By the law of Moses, and the 
administration of reproof by the prophets, the tiling was 
accomplished, and in no other way. Thus the law was 
a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. When the evil of 
idolatry was cured, and ideas of the Messiah, created by 
the Mosaic ritual, the world was prepared for a higher 
Dispensation. 

One other topic in regard to the Old Testament is 
worthy of notice. It is a part of the history of mono- 
theism that has not been sufficiently studied. I allude 
to the history of the Arabians, as it connects itself 
with the Old Testament on the one side, and with 
Islamism on the other. The Arabs claim Abraham, the 
first reformer of the world, as their father. Ishmael 
was the son of the father of the faithful ; but his son by 
a foreign wife; yet to Ishmael also was the promise 
given that he should inherit, but in an inferior degree, 
the blessing of Abraham. Other descendants of Abra- 
ham were mingled in Idumea, constituting two lines 
of the Abrahamic family, the Arabic and the Jewish. 
They have the same relation to the true religion that the 
two sons have to Abraham, or Esau and Jacob to Isaac. 
Through the true son comes the true gospel ; the other 
is a degree removed from it. But the fact is, that both 
lines recognize and worship the same one God : from 
both lines originated the reformers of idolatry. The 



OF THE AGE. 63 

Arabs are now, in this respect, about where the Jews 
were before the coming of Christ. They, like the Jews, 
have frequently relapsed into the idolatry and vices of 
surrounding nations ; yet before Mohammed there were 
many reformers who restored monotheism in some of the 
tribes. But the points at which this history connects 
itself with our subject are, first, the Mohammedans are 
monotheists; second, they worship Jehovah, the God of 
Abraham and Moses; third, this reformation of the 
Arabian tribes, which restored the worship of the one 
God, was effected by Mohammed through the light and 
power of the patriarchal and Mosaic dispensations. The 
truth which the prophet uses to kill idolatry is drawn 
from the history of Abraham and the precepts of Moses. 
The 14th chapter of the Koran is entitled "Abraham." 
The patriarch is introduced as praying for the suppres- 
sion of idolatry — " Keep me and my children from the 
worship of idols ; they have seduced part of the people." 
The authority of Moses is likewise recognized ; and he 
is frequently introduced as denouncing idolatry and 
commanding the worship of Jehovah. 

Thus, the evidence is incontrovertible, that the wor- 
ship of one God revealed in the Old Testament Scrip- 
tures was the reforming power of the whole world, so 
far as man was rescued from idolatry. The two branches 
of the Abraham ic family have done the work. Moham- 



64 LIVING QUESTIONS 

medans are now, in this one respect, where the Jews 
were before Christ, and where the unbelieving Jews are 
still. All that they have in advance of heathen poly- 
theism is by the revealed religion of the Old Testament, 
and the authority of Jehovah as therein revealed. All 
that we have in advance of them starts from this point. 
This brings us to the Gospel Dispensation, the " true 
light that now shineth." 

The prophets of the Old Dispensation, as we have 
noticed, had foretold the sevenfold light of the Messianic 
age. The last prophetic utterance Mai. iii, 1-4, an- 
nounces that Christ would send his messenger, John 
Baptist, before him; that he would suddenly come in 
his temple ; but that his Dispensation would be " as a 
refiner's fire," a moral power, purifying the world and 
the church. 

John Baptist came, and affirming that the kingdom 
of heaven was at hand, he called the nation to repent- 
ance; thus practically promulgating the truth that 
reformation was necessary in order to enter the Mes- 
siah's kingdom. This was the burden of his baptism, 
" The axe is laid at the root of the tree." The separa- 
ting fan is in the hand of the Messiah. He will separate 
the chaff from the wheat, gather the wheat into his 
garner, and burn the chaff with unquenchable fire. 

Jesus came, preaching reformation and a higher life. 



OF THE AGE. 65 

He denounced the traditions of the Jewish teachers. He 
selected men without literary or philosophical attain- 
ment. He imbued them with a new spirit, and with 
power from on high ; and commissioned them to revolu- 
tionize all forms of power in church and state ; promis- 
ing Divine aid and supervision until the work should be 
accomplished. 

History gives us the result of the struggle and the 
success of the truth in the apostolic age. As it was in 
Ephesus, so it was in other cities. When Jesus died, 
the old world had its greatest intellectual light and its 
greatest moral darkness. The truth and power of the 
gospel was a purifying element, reforming and elevating 
out of the mass of corruption a large company of the 
men and women of that age. 

In establishing a new system, with new powers and 
principles, the agency of the Divine Author must be 
interposed, of course; just as every new geological ad- 
vance requires the breaking up of the old strata. But 
as human nature is always below the revealed religion 
which is designed to reform and elevate it, the corrupt 
age, and the dark ages which followed, were a natural 
sequence. The last of the apostles was not in his grave, 
and the visible power which established the New Testa- 
ment had scarcely subsided, before humanity lapsed into 
error. To the light of the apostolic age there succeeded 

6* 



QQ LIVING QUESTIONS 

clouds, darkened by depravity and tinged by supersti- 
tion. When earthly power could not subdue the church, 
it allied itself with her, and thus corrupted her truth. 
This adulterous union of church and state is the great 
dragon on the Continent, and the little dragon in Eng- 
land, Rev. xii, et seq., and from the period of the adul- 
terous union between church and state the light of truth 
waned into the total eclipse of the dark ages — ages 
without a Bible. 

But out of the darkness the Bible light again sprang 
up, and has shone more and more down to our day. 
Our last inquiry, therefore, is — Has revealed religion 
been the source and the power of reformation and 
moral progress in the world, under the Christian Dis- 
pensation, and from the dark ages until now ? 

We need not inquire concerning the causes which 
immediately introduced the dark ages. Suffice it to 
say, that during the period from the sixth to the fif- 
teenth century, the light of revelation was veiled. 
The Scriptures were no longer in the vernacular tongue 
of the people. Both church and state were without a 
Bible. The dawn of reformation begins with WicklifFe 
and Huss. Their translations and preaching antedate 
the art of printing, and the other great inventions 
of the fifteenth century. The art of printing no doubt . 
greatly aided the Reformation ; but printing has in 






OF THE AGE. 67 

itself no reformatory moral power. Whether it ad- 
vances or retards the moral progress of men depends 
on the things printed. The enemies of the Reforma- 
tion used the press as freely as the reformers. The 
press infected the Continent with atheism in the days 
of Voltaire, and the press strengthened the power of 
despotism under Robespierre. The press can do no 
more than disseminate the thought of the age, whether 
that be bad or good. Truth is stronger than error; 
hence the press is an auxiliary in the world's enlight- 
enment. But light without moral principle has no 
real reformatory power. It does not create conscience, 
and hence wants the element of permanent moral pro- 
gress. 

Luther is identified as the man of the Reformation. 
A benighted monk, he found a copy of the Bible in 
the convent of Erfurth, as Josiah did in the temple 
of old. The Bible enlightened Luther. He translated 
it into the vernacular tongue of his country, and it 
enlightened the people. Every shaft that the reformers 
hurled at the Papal demon was drawn from the Bible. 
Nine-tenths of the literature of the Reformation was 
biblical. That the Bible made the reformers is as true 
as that the reformers produced the Reformation by the 
same means. About the facts in the case there can be 
no controversy. The dark ages were dissipated, and 



68 LIVING QUESTIONS 

the Reformation accomplished by the light and power 
of revealed religion. 

Yon have, no doubt, read the recently published 
history of the Dutch Republic, by Motley. If you 
have not, get it at once. It will give you the detailed 
statement of the struggle between the Bible power and 
the Papal devil in the Netherlands — a struggle, the 
successful issue of which placed Holland in the fore- 
front of the civilization of the age, furnished an asylum 
for the persecuted in other nations, and developed a de- 
gree of moral progress greatly in advance of the times. 
That the Bible power achieved this moral victory for 
humanity, freedom, and religion cannot be questioned. 

It is conceded that the basis for the Reformation in 
England was laid by Tindale's translation. Besides 
this, during the struggle in the Netherlands, multitudes 
of the persecuted fled to England, and carried the 
seeds of Bible truth with them across the Channel. 
Thus was begun the progress that was rendered per- 
manent by the translation under King James. 

Another stage of progress in civil and religious 
freedom was initiated by the Puritans. To them it is 
conceded, even by Macaulay, that England owes all 
that places her in advance of other nations of Europe. 
To the Puritans, Quakers, and Baptists we owe all of 
religious liberty that we possess in America. And yet 



OF THE AGE. 69 

who dare deny that all these stages of progress were 
gained by the Bible power? The questions of those 
ages of progress were Bible questions. The conscience 
that strengthened true moral heroes to endure and to 
triumph was Bible-made conscience. The issues be- 
tween them and their opponents were Bible issues. 
Luther's moving issue was justification by faith against 
the Papist error of justification by penance and indul- 
gences. The Dutch and the Scotch fought against the 
powers of darkness, and triumphed under the same 
banner. The Puritans inscribed on their banner 
"Bible faith and practice against forms." The pure 
Bible was their watchword. Wesley's Reformation 
was purely religious, but, like preceding advances, it 
was founded on Bible principle, experience against pro- 
fession. So the principle of Penn was non-conformity 
to the wwld, against a worldly church. But more than 
all, it was Bible faith which gave strength of heart 
and conscience and will to all these reformers ; so that 
they braved dangers, suffered persecutions, subdued the 
wilderness, and achieved all the civil and religious 
progress which the world possesses. 

This historic analysis might be run through all the 
details of human progress. So far as the human family 
has advanced in moral culture, with its concomitant 
blessings of civil liberty and social comfort, that ad- 



70 LIVING QUESTIONS 

vance has been achieved, even in limited localities, by 
Bible light and power. 

Take an epitome of instances and illustrations. In 
my school-days we had a map in our geographies which 
gave us an apprehension of the degree of civilization 
existing in different countries of the globe. Those 
regions which were the most advanced in civil and 
moral culture were light; the utterly pagan nations 
were black ; those regions partially civilized were par- 
tially radiated. Now, upon that map, which I took 
pains to inquire for and examine very recently, the 
degree of national enlightenment corresponds precisely 
with the amount of Bible knowledge prevalent among 
the people. There is no exception to this. It is uni- 
versal over the whole earth. The Bible is the light and 
life of the moral world, just as distinctly as the sun is 
the light and life of the physical world. 

The local illustrations of this fact are striking. I 
have had the privilege, in various portions of the old 
and new world, of noticing evidences that have left 
lasting impressions on my heart. 

Various states of Germany contain a mixed popula- 
tion, some Protestant, some Papal inhabitants. Now, 
just in proportion to the Protestant element does moral 
progress and civil liberty exist. Take Belgium as the 
starting-point. Travel up the Rhine and through the 



OF THE AGE. 71 

German states towards Rome, and the amount of prog- 
ress can be gauged accurately by the amount of Bible 
knowledge among the people. As you approach Rome, 
the seat of Papal power and superstition, the darkness 
can be felt. There the Bible is totally withheld from 
the masses, and the despotism of the rulers, and the 
degradation of the people, and the superstition of the 
whole, are almost equal to that of Central Asia ; while 
vice and crime are more prevalent than they are in 
some pagan regions. 

Pass with me, now, through Scotland and Ireland. 
Scotland has one curse in common with Ireland, the 
habit of using ardent spirits prevalent among all 
classes. But, apart from this, the peasantry are equal 
to any in Europe. In the cities of Edinburgh and 
Glasgow there is a degree of poverty and vice in some 
of the poorer streets, as in High and Cowgate streets, 
Edinburgh, which is revolting. I saw nothing like it 
in Aberdeen. On inquiring of an intelligent gentle- 
man the reasons of the phenomenon, he said most of 
the mass of depravity accumulated in these pens was 
made up of Irish Catholics and similar elements; and 
that scarcely any of it originated with the Bible-reading 
population of the country. 

Pass from Glasgow to Belfast, in Ireland ; and from 
Belfast through Dublin to the south of the island. In 



72 LIVING QUESTIONS 

this journey, as you leave the Bible-reading north, and 
pass to the Catholic south, you pass from light and 
morals into the heart of one of the most degraded and 
superstitious regions that there is in Europe. Perhaps, 
after the masses of Home and Naples, there is none 
more so in Christendom. The emigration of this igno- 
rant and superstitious population to American cities 
brings a curse with it. " Democratic mobs" are often 
referred to in Europe. The accusers do not know that 
the mobs are composed of the Catholic masses from 
their own country, and that intemperance here is mostly 
both cause and curse of foreign origin. 

Now, let us look a moment over the different sections 
of our own country, and it will be seen that the most 
intelligent and moral population of the world, take 
them en masse, is in that portion of the Union where 
the people are most generally instructed in Bible prin- 
ciples and precepts ; while in other sections of our land 
vice and ignorance prevail just in proportion as the 
people are deprived of the Bible, or in proportion 
as they suppress Bible truth in professedly Christian 
churches. In the one section principles and practices 
are maintained that would have appalled the men of 
the same section twenty years ago. In the other it is 
hoped the light is advancing. 

It is likewise true that all the moral reforms for 



OF THE AGE. 73 

which our land is distinguished, so far as they have 
succeeded, have been initiated and advanced by the 
Bible light and power in the hearts and consciences 
of reformers. The temperance movement began in 
the church, and the process of enlightenment was 
carried forward almost exclusively by Christians. 
Search the record, and you will find that the im- 
pulse and the direction were both given by Bible 
readers. I know the final appeal has been to legisla- 
tion, but legislation can do nothing until sufficient 
light is disseminated and sufficient conscience produced 
in relation to the evil to be reformed. Our legislation, 
in some States, has gone in advance of the moral senti- 
ment of the masses, and reaction has ensued; and the 
reform will never become prevalent until the light and 
moral power of the Bible produce sufficient conscience 
to sustain it. There only is the moral principle that 
creates perseverance, there the benevolence that prompts 
to persistent self-denial for human good. 

So in relation to the anti-slavery reform. In Eng- 
land, the Christian sentiment of the nation began, carried 
forward, and consummated the work of emancipation. 
In this country the first fifteen years were spent entirely 
in moral endeavor by Bible men. It is true that a large 
portion of the churches withheld their influence, espe- 
cially those churches rendered conservative by wealth, or 
d 7 



74 LIVING QUESTIONS 

connection with the sin ; but after all, it is true that in 
every region of the free States where the reform was 
urged perseveringly, and one advance after another 
secured, in every such instance it will be found that 
the Bible power was the impulse, and Christians* the 
agents in the work. Mr. Garrison was a true and 
praiseworthy reformer, but the claim either that he 
originated the movement or announced the principle of 
immediate emancipation is not true. The eminent Ben- 
jamin Lundy was before Garrison, so was Rev. John 
Rankin, in his letters on Slavery ; and before him Rev. 
Mr. Thomas, of Southern Ohio, and others, both East 
and West, had proclaimed, on Scripture principles, the 
duty of immediate emancipation. 

Mr. Garrison, in that spirit which always character- 
izes the best minds, acknowledged, in a convention 
assembled at Cincinnati, in the presence of Mr. Rankin 
and the assembled audience, his indebtedness to John 
Rankin for principle and impulse in the anti-slavery 
cause. This statement he subsequently inscribed in a 
volume which he presented to the aged veteran. 

There were many recreant ministers in that time, but 
it was the teaching of the true men that made Garrison 
a reformer, and his paper was established and sustained 
mostly by Christian reformers, while it was but one of a 
thousand like agencies in the land. 



OF THE AGE. 75 



CHAPTER III. 



THE BIBLE IN SCHOOL. 



Categories of the Reason showing that Revelation is a Ne- 
cessity in order to the Moral Culture of the Human 
Mind. 

INTRODUCTION 

An attempt is made in the following treatise to show, 
demonstratively, three things: 1. That the conscience 
cannot be cultivated without a sense of Divine authority. 
2. That that authority must be connected with a perfect 
rule of right. 3. That the precepts and example of 
Christ are the absolute and only perfect rule of human 
conduct. If these propositions are herein proved, then 
the use of the Bible in schools, in order to conserve and 
preserve American institutions, is firmly established. 
And it follows as a necessary inference that the efforts 
of Dr. William W. Patton, and other able writers, to 
exclude the Bible from the common school are unwise. 



76 LIVING QUESTIONS 

PEOPOSITION I. 

THE SPECIES OF NATURE CREATED CAPABLE OE IMPROVEMENT. 

All the higher species of nature, including man, 
are susceptible of improvement ; but no species can ad- 
vance itself. By the agency of man, individuals of 
both the vegetable and animal kingdoms may be ad- 
vanced far beyond what is possible in their natural 
state. Many species of fruits are "flat, stale, and un- 
profitable" by nature, and would continue so without 
the aid of human culture. So the domestic animals 
have been rendered docile and profitable only by human 
effort. The statement is verified by all experience, 
that every being below man that has valuable quali- 
ties is capable of improvement; but the culture must 
come, in all cases, from a nature higher than its own. 
There are adaptations and dependencies throughout 
creation between one species and another, but the 
cultivation which elevates individuals of any species 
above their natural condition must come from an 
agency above the species itself. Man is created lord of 
the animal species. He advances and improves such 
individuals as are profitable for his use, and destroys 
others. 

In like manner as man is lord of the animal creation, 



OF THE AGE. 77 

and the only being capable of elevating a species below 
himself, so, in accordance with the nature of things, the 
agency of a Superior Mind is necessary in order to the 
moral elevation of man. Like the lower animals, as we 
shall see, there is a certain natural level above which 
man cannot rise without aid from a being superior to 
himself. 

This is true of man especially as a moral being. In 
intellectual attainment individuals, in some nations, have 
achieved an advanced position without the aid of revela- 
tion. It may be conceded that some of the moral maxims 
of Confucius, Socrates, and Seneca are similar to those of 
the Bible ; but whatever may be admitted on this point 
in regard to intellectual attainment, the fact is settled 
historically that without aid from above himself, man 
sinks into sensuous vices and cannot attain the moral 
purity that comes from a true knowledge of God. The 
Greeks and Romans had many excellent precepts, and 
advanced intellectually to a high position; but in the 
knowledge of God and purity of heart they were below 
many of the barbarous nations by which they were sur- 
rounded. The existence of polygamy, of human sacri- 
fices, of lustful worship — the murder of gladiators, and, 
alas ! of the vile and unnatural vice of sodomy, at the 
period of Rome's highest intellectual attainment, settles 
the question that mental culture is not moral culture. 

7* 



78 LIVING QUESTIONS 

A people may rise intellectually while moral corruption 
constantly increases. 

PEOPOSITIOS II. 

THE MEXTAL CONSTITUTION OP ANIMALS AND MEN INDICATES 
THE BEING BY WHOM THEY MEST BE ELEVATED TO A 
BETTER CONDITION. 

The cultivating agent in the case of men, as in that 
of animals, is easily determined by the mental relations 
existing between the inferior and superior beings. The 
mind of animals reaches up to man, and there it stops; 
it knows no higher lord. It can recognize a man's 
thoughts, his kindness, and his will, in the relations it 
sustains to him ; and its nature responds by gratitude, 
obedience, and service. The mind of man, commu- 
nicated by words and especially by acts, subdues to 
obedience and elevates to usefulness the animal subjects 
of his culture. This reveals the natural relation and 
dependence which God has constituted between the two 
beings, man and his subjects. These principles apply 
alike to the relation between the human and the 
Divine mind. The animal mind reaches up to man 
and there it stops. The human mind reaches up 
to God and there it stops — stops naturally, with a 
sufficient cause. (There may be exceptional minds 



OF THE AGE. 79 

that doubt about the existence of God ; but this comes 
from looking down through nature to the ultimate 
of matter, rather than looking up through nature to 
the ultimate of mind. But the number of such minds 
that have existed in the world is not so great as 
the number of monstrosities that have been born 
with two heads.) A superior mind can look down and 
understand the constitution of an inferior one better 
than the inferior can understand itself; but an inferior 
mind cannot look up and understand a superior one, 
except so far as the higher mind reveals itself. 

Now this created relation between the mind of man 
and animals, and between the mind of God and man, 
settles the question with the reason that animals are 
constituted to obey man, and man is constituted by 
nature to receive tuition from the superior mind of his 
Maker ; because, as we shall see, it is knowledge of the 
Divine mind and will that produces the cultivation. 
The thoughts of God communicated by words and acts, 
are as necessary for the moral advancement of men as 
like means, by man, are for the advancement of 
animals. Conformity of the animal to the known will 
of man constitutes its culture. Precisely the same 
must be true in regard to man and God. Unless God 
has constituted relations between Himself and His 
creatures that mean nothing, this view of the relations 



80 LIVING QUESTIONS 

of man as a being susceptible of culture, to the superior 
mind of his Maker, is founded in the nature of things. 
It is not a matter that can be reasonably doubted. We 
cannot ignore natural relations and adaptations in the 
creation ; and unless we do, we must assent to the con- 
clusion that the mind of man is constituted to receive 
culture from the superior mind of his Creator. (Man 
does not cultivate all species of animals, nor all indi- 
viduals of any species ; but the most docile and saga- 
cious both of species and individuals are selected for 
culture. Is it not so in the moral culture of the human 
family ?) 

As, therefore, the mind of man recognizes God, and 
thereby becomes a subject of Divine tuition, the next 
inquiry in the catenation is : By what means can ideas 
of the Divine character and will be communicated to the 
human mind? 

PROPOSITION III. 

WRITTEN LANGUAGE THE ADAPTED MEANS IN PROMOTING THE 
CIVIL AND MORAL PROGRESS OF MEN. 

A sign-language is characteristic of man. Although 
it may not be developed at the lowest stage of social 
condition, it is always a necassity as a means of social 
progress. Animals, to some extent, make sounds and 



OF THE AGE. 81 

gestures that are intelligible among themselves; but 
they cannot impress upon matter a permanent sign of 
their thought. This is an endowment possessed by the 
human genus alone. 

It is not necessary to our argument to discuss the 
forms of the primitive sign-languages; or whether there 
were an original language which was the basis of all 
others. Whether by one method or another, the fact is 
the same; every settled nation with whose history we 
are acquainted formed or possessed a sign-language. 
As nations advance in age language improves, and the 
people improve intellectually with the language. Col- 
onies carry the parent language into new regions of the 
world. In the lapse of time, by the intermingling of 
peoples, old forms and sounds are modified — some words 
are lost and new ones admitted; but the attribute of 
a sign-making and sign-reading being is characteristic 
of man in all ages, after he leaves the lowest stages of 
barbarism and attains to a settled habitation. Just as 
soon as time and settled condition give opportunity he 
makes for himself signs of thought, and, although the 
methods may vary, the result is the same — the signs 
written by the hand of one communicate his thoughts 
through the eye to the minds of others. 

After the language of any people has taken its form, 
the degree of civilization attained by that nation can be 



82 LIVING QUESTIONS 

ascertained with perfect accuracy by the copiousness of 
their vocabulary and the shades of discrimination in 
their definitions. In written language they accumulate 
and preserve the history, science, and sentiment of the 
past, and add to these the achievements and experiences 
of the present. Their words, written or engraved, are 
susceptible of authentication, and thus become the media 
of commercial and civil transactions; and as law and 
commerce are conditions of civilization, nothing can be 
more apparent than the statement that without a written 
language civilization is impossible. And if civilization 
is impossible without a sign-language, we cannot suppose 
that moral culture, which is the crowning excellence of 
civilization, can be attained without an aid that is neces- 
sary to the lower stages of social progress. 

Without written language man is a being of un- 
developed possibilities — an infant in knowledge while 
old in years and in crime ; a being without purity of 
heart; living mostly in the present; haunted by demons 
of imagination ; and a prey to human tyrants, as igno- 
rant, but more powerful than himself. 

The inquiry then naturally suggests itself whether 
sign-language is necessary to fix and convey to man not 
only knowledge of secular things, but knowledge of the 
Divine character. 



OF THE AGE. 83 



PROPOSITION IV. 

SIGN-LANGUAGE THE ONLY MEANS BY WHICH MAN OBTAINS A 
TRUE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

. The fact has been shown to be not only historically 
but philosophically true, that the character of the God in 
whom man believes determines the moral character of 
the worshipper ; and that man cannot, of himself, attain 
to a true idea of the Divine character. In order to per- 
ceive the force of this section a distinct apprehension 
should be obtained in regard to what man by nature can 
know and what he cannot know of God. Scripture and 
experience teach us that from the things that are made 
man derives the existence and natural attributes of the 
Maker, i.e., Existence, power, and wisdom — " Eternal 
power and Godhead." (Rom. i, 20 ; Phil. Plan of Sal- 
vation, chap, i.) A belief in the existence of God has 
been found in all ages, existing among all races of men ; 
but no two nations, independently of revelation, have 
had the same idea of the Divine character. The diver- 
sity in the one case is as perfect as the unity in the other. 
Without revelation men believe that God is, but their 
ideas of what He is are as diverse as their languages. 
The idea of the Divine existence is the idea of being ; 
the idea of character implies quality — comparison. No 



84 LIVING QUESTIONS 

one can suppose that man has intuitive ideas either of 
the physical or spiritual qualities of things. 

But God cannot have two or more different characters. 
It follows, therefore, as a logical necessity, that those 
who conceive of Him in a false character, do not worship 
the true God, and cannot, therefore, receive upon the 
mind and heart an elevating and purifying influence 
from the Divine character; but, on the contrary, an 
impression false and injurious. 

And just so far as the ideas of different nations differ 
in regard to the true God, their imagined symbols and 
signs of His character will be different. Men were made 
dependent upon sign-language for advancement, but they 
had no signs of the Divine character that would give 
either unity or truth to the moral qualities of the object 
of their worship ; and hence diversity in the conception 
of the Divine character has been universal among all 
unenlightened nations. 

The reason of this failure to derive the character of 
the true God, without revelation, is obvious. Nature is 
yet imperfect, and the phenomena of nature differ in 
different regions. (It is an interesting study to observe 
with what uniformity the different nations have derived 
the character of their gods from the peculiar phenomena 
of the region where they dwell. The gods of the North- 
men are heroes of slaughter — of the South men of re- 



OF THE AGE. 85 

pose and quiescence.) And as all signs of thought 
originate in the external world, and reach the mind 
through the senses, there is no archetype from which a 
true and uniform sign of the Divine character can be 
derived. Hence the theologies originated by the human 
mind in all ages are now seen by the enlightened reason 
to be erroneous in conception and debasing in influence. 
The best thing which unaided men can do is that which 
they always have done — clothe their ideas of eternal 
power and godhead with the imperfect attributes of their 
own nature, and worship the erroneous conception. And 
even in this respect the idolatries of the masses fell 
below what reason might have deduced from nature. 
As, therefore, nature furnished no sign of the true God, 
the inquiry arises, How could correct ideas of the Divine 
character be imparted to the human mind ? 

PKOPOSITIOI V. 

MOSES WAS A SIGN-MAKEK. 

We have seen that every nation gave a different char- 
acter to their gods, and that creation which is yet imper- 
fect could furnish no symbols of the moral attributes of 
the Creator. Now, if any one says, contrary to this 
deduction, that man could "derive from a knowledge of 



8Q LIVING QUESTIONS 

himself or of his surroundings perfect righteousness 
and love, the answer is decisive without argument — 
Man has never done- so in any circumstances or nation. 
Hence, whether it were possible or not, a revelation by 
signs or symbols, adapted to communicate knowledge of 
God, was necessary, or man's ignorance and debasement 
would have continued. 

Now, it is a matter verified by the experience of the 
Jewish people, that the Old Testament process of reveal- 
ing by signs the character of Jehovah, is in accordance 
with the laws of language, and in adaptation to the un- 
cultured state of the elected nation. This is the marked 
and peculiar character of the Levitical rites. The ritual 
Dispensation was entirely symbolical; and the symbols 
were signs of first ideas in the knowledge of God. 
Added to these symbols were principles of law and wor- 
ship ; so that by the working of the Mosaic economy, 
there were coined, as in a die, the signs which conveyed 
to the Jewish mind a true conception of the character 
of God, so far as God was revealed in the introductory 
Dispensation. 

Hoses was a sign-maker. His mission was understood 
in the Dispensation of which he was mediator. His 
symbols were given him by vision, and he was required 
to conform them, in all things, to the patterns revealed 
to him. (Exodus xxv, 40.) He was instructed to form 



OF THE AGE. 87 

his signs "according to the pattern showed him in the 
mount." So the New Testament writers understood the 
design of this system of signs, and affirm that they are 
not of earthly origin, " but of things in the heavens." 
(Hebrews ix, 23.) Thus, by revelation, the righteous- 
ness of God, as law-giver, was declared under the Old 
Testament Dispensation ; and the symbols which fore- 
shadowed a further Dispensation of truth and mercy 
were transferred into the Hebrew language, and thus 
became fixed signs of religious truth. They could thus 
be understood by those who worshipped at a distance from 
Jerusalem, where the original symbols were still exhib- 
ited. And their significance being thus transferred into 
written words, the ideas which they conveyed could 
be transmitted to the future, and translated into other 
tongues. 

In the beginning of the Christian Dispensation the 
same method of producing ideas of the fulness of the 
Divine mercy was adopted. But we have the substance 
of the symbolic rites of Moses in the cross of Christ, 
which gives to believing men a living knowledge of the 
love of God — a degree of mercy not conceivable before 
the personal self-sacrifice at Calvary. This central sym- 
bol is transferred into the fixed sacramental and written 
signs of the New Testament, and thereby becomes a 
permanent element of human culture for all time. 



88 LIVING QUESTIONS 

That manifestation was made by sacrifice transformed 

into symbol, and transferred into the words of sign-lan- 
guage •* to be manifested to all in due time." An idea 
of greater benevolence could not possibly be produced 

than that exhibited by the excruciating death of the 
- ss for the benefit of others. The possibility, there- 
fore, of revealing the Divine love by symbol and sign- 
language is ultimated in the cross of Christ and the 
Christian revelation. 

Love, the saving element of the Divine nature, is thus 
fully revealed by symbol anj sign. Yet this revelation 
of truth is of no value only so far as men are influenced 
and actuated thereby. By what means, then, can this 
objective truth become subjective in the heart and au- 
thoritative with the conscience ? 

This brings us to the crowning inquiry : By what 
means can the truth be made efficient to strengthen the 
conscience and purify the heart, at the same time that it 
enlightens the intellect ? This culture of all the powers 
of the mind is the only way to produce a symmetrical 
and useful and therefore noble character. This end all 
intelligent teachers, patriots, and Christians will seek. 
How, then, does truth become a life-directing element in 
the moral culture of the mind? 



OF THE AGE. 89 



PROPOSITION VI. 

TRUTH BECOMES EFFICIENT FOR MORAL CULTURE ONLY WHEN 
THE SOUL SEES THE AUTHORITY OF GOD IN IT. 

The soul of man, as demonstrated in Proposition II., 
is made to recognize God — to recognize the relation 
which we sustain to Him as a superior being. A sense 
of this natural relation has exerted a marked influence 
on mankind in all ages and nations. It is an idea in- 
nate in all men. It may be called the God-sense — an 
impulse which affects men more than any other principle 
of their nature. Not only the worships, but the wars, 
the architecture, sculpture, painting, poetry, everything 
by which man can express the deepest sentiments of the 
soul, has been produced by the influence of this sense of 
God in the mind. It has produced different effects in 
diiferent nations in keeping with their views of the Di- 
vine character; but it has never failed to move the minds 
of men, and its effects upon men have been productive 
of evil in all cases where the truth has not been revealed. 
If God is just, this natural impulse implies a revelation 
of truth which, in accordance with the law of progress, 
u will be manifested to all in due time." 

But although truth is a necessity without which the 
God-sense works evil in the human soul, yet in itself 

8* 



90 LIVING QUESTIONS 

alone truth has no power to elevate man as a moral be- 
ing. It may enlighten the mind, but it does not quicken 
the conscience or purify the heart. If knowledge pro- 
duced virtue, the wisest men would be the best men. 
But a man may be as intelligent as Borgia, and yet be 
as base ; or as Locke, and yet not be as good. With 
this innate sense of our relation to God, there must be 
truth which we recognize as revealing His character and 
will. Truth authorized and enforced by the God-sense 
is the only perfect means or media of moral culture. 
Where man by sin or unbelief has lost this sense of his 
relation to God, there is no force in the truth that relates 
to God. The general conception of a father is one thing 
— to recognize and feel the relation — my father — is quite 
a different thing. The concrete is life — the abstract is 
death. A father and Abba Father are so distinct, that 
one may not affect the conduct in any degree, while the 
other affects the conscience, the heart, and the will. 
What, therefore, man needs in order to moral culture, 
is truth recognized as coming from God — truth in which 
he recognizes Divine authority. 

When God has revealed His character and His will, 
the sense of relation which sees God in truth is usually 
called faith. This sense, as we have seen, is natural, and 
exists both in the light and the dark. It gives Divine 
authority to falsehood where the truth is not revealed. 



OF THE AGE. 91 

In the dark it sees objects indistinctly and in imaginary 
forms, and affects the mind as that of a child that is 
impressed by fear and phantoms of the imagination. 
Not only this, but faith in falsehood will pervert the 
conscience, as certainly as truth will rectify it. There 
are Mormons that believe at the same time in the 
divine mission and licentious doctrines of Brigham 
Young, and consequently and conscientiously they 
become almost bestial in their habits. There are men 
and women who sacrifice themselves or their children 
to idols, in obedience to some vow which they had 
made to a supposed Supreme Being — or to discharge 
some imagined duty which their faith enjoined. What- 
ever a man believes to be duty in the sight of his God, 
he is so made that the conscience enforces obedience. 
(See John xvi, 8-11, and Ephesians v, 13.) It is made 
to hear the voice of God ; and when a man believes 
that he hears that voice, conscience will respond to the 
call, whether true or false. If God is just and good, a 
revelation of truth is implied both in the nature of faith 
and in the character of the conscience. The Bible is 
made for man in the same sense that the Sabbath is ; 
and without it conscience has no life in regard to God, 
and faith is not a blessing. 

This brings us to the final proposition of the series. 
Before stating this, it will give coherence to the whole 



92 LIVING QUESTIONS 

catenation if we notice in connection some of the points 
that have been already established. 

As man is endowed with the capacity to exercise 
faith in a Superior Being ; as this sense of revelation 
moves him to debase his nature by the worship of false 
gods where the true character of God is not revealed ; 
as that character can only be discovered by Divine 
revelation; and as that revelation can be made only 
by a sign-language — these conclusions being established, 
there remains the inquiry whether the written language 
of the New Testament — whether the Divine character 
as revealed in Christ, be the means, and the only adapted 
means, of moral culture in the family, the school, and 
the nation. 

In this inquiry, whether we take the theological ex- 
position or the scientific one, it is agreed by all parties 
that man is capable of culture, and that truth alone is 
the appliance by which he must be elevated from a 
barbarous to a higher moral condition. It is agreed, 
likewise, that the prosperity of individuals, of families, 
and of the nation depends on the principles of righteous- 
ness and love. It is agreed, likewise, whether the means 
are used by God or men, that there must be special 
adaptations to accomplish special ends. Assuming 
these principles and postulates, we reach the last, the 
keystone proposition in the series. 



OF THE AGE. 93 



PROPOSITION VII. 

THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION ALONE HAS SPECIFIC AND PERFECT 
ADAPTATIONS TO ACCOMPLISH THE MORAL CULTURE OF MEN AS 
INDIVIDUALS, AS FAMILIES, AND AS CITIZENS. 

Adaptation 1. It is necessary, in order that man 
should make progress in morals, that he have some 
accepted standard of duty, by comparison with which 
he may be shown his defects in heart and life. No 
man can make an effort to advance to* a higher condi- 
tion until he sees and feels that his present condition is 
a low or a wrong one. Conviction of wrong is a neces- 
sary antecedent to effort for the right. Until a man 
sees that his present state is a bad one, he cannot, and 
ought not, to make an effort for a better. Besides, 
without a common standard of duty there could be no 
agreement among men in regard to what is right, and 
good, and true; and no accepted measure by which 
virtue and vice could be determined. 

Furthermore, the standard of duty must be of such 
excellence that a man could attain to it only by per- 
fecting all his powers. Persons who believe that they 
have reached the excellence of their model have no 
impulse or motive to make advances. The man who 



94 LIVING QUESTIONS 

strives to copy a perfect picture, although he may fail, 
will see by comparison where his defects are; while 
without such a standard, he will neither know his 
defects nor know when he is advancing to a perfect 
attainment. It is clear, therefore, that the mind of 
man is so constituted by its Maker, that a perfect 
standard of life is necessary in order to the progressive 
development of his faculties. 

This perfect example, likewise, must be a human 
example (Phil. Plan of Salvation, chap. x.). Man's 
jaature could be perfected only by conformity to a model 
man. We could not follow the example of an angel 
or of any other being whose faculties were different 
from, our own. And it must be an example of right 
action in our circumstances. Precept alone is not suf- 
ficient. Man needs to understand the application of 
the precept in his peculiar surroundings, as the denizen 
of a sinful world. In a world without sin the same 
law would not require the same duties. We also need 
to know the spirit of heart in which our duties are to 
be discharged toward our fellow-men. A man may do 
a good act with a bad spirit, and a right act with a 
wrong motive. A true life, in spirit and practice, as 
a standard of duty, is a first and essential need in order 
to the moral progress of men from a lower to a higher 
moral condition (Phil, iii, 12-14). 



OF THE AGE, 95 

Now, this foundation-stone laid in the New Testa- 
ment cannot be moved. The Lord Jesus Christ has 
given a perfect standard of human duty, conjoined with 
the spirit in which that duty should be discharged, and 
empowered the same by Divine authority. 

About the perfection of this standard, no one who 
believes that God exists, and that man is a sinner, can 
have any doubt. There can be nothing better in 
precept or in practice than to love God with all our 
heart, and our neighbor as ourself. If God Himself 
were to give any other standard, or a standard in any 
other form, it would have to be a worse one, because it 
could not be better. Jesus gave this standard in pre- 
cept, in practice, and in spirit. And as Christ is perfect, 
the individual aspiring to that standard will, by assim- 
ilation, become more and more so. And as the God- 
sense is connected with the example so that no one 
can believe the New Testament without connecting 
God with the precept, and as Divine favor is promised 
to all who strive perseveringly, however they may 
fail, the standard is not only perfect in itself, but it 
is perfectly adapted to secure, as well as to direct, 
human effort to the highest attainment. (It is sacri- 
lege to compare the moral standard of Jesus, as some 
have done, with the most eminent moral characters 
of the ancient world. Seneca was ostentatious and 



96 LIVING QUESTIONS 

licentious. Socrates forsook his wife to consort with 
the harlot Aspasia. Plato's community of women, and 
vulgar words, repel the pure in heart. Jesus alone 
lived a Divine life in a sinful world, and attached 
the God-sense to his example.) 

Adaptation 2. But a general exhibition of truth 
does not accomplish special ends ; it needs to be ap- 
plied to the distinctive evil propensions of the mind. 
The evils of the mind, like the diseases of the body, 
assume specific forms and manifestations. In order 
to meet these mental habitudes, standard truth must 
be specifically applied to counteract and remove them. 

Selfishness does not always manifest itself in evil 
action, but more frequently it assumes the character 
of uncharitable and malignant feeling. The evil and 
the injury that it inflicts are within the mind itself. 
The mental constitution is such that any ill-will cher- 
ished toward another creates unrest and oftentimes 
wretchedness. The Saviour says, " Love your enemies." 
This is contrary to nature; but if we disobey, and 
hate even an enemy, we destroy the peace of the soul. 
We do not injure the object of our hatred; but we 
injure oursdves. And so far as malignity predomi- 
nates the penalty is experienced in the soul. This 
internal evil is the source of all external guilt. The 
remedy should therefore be applied to the seat of the 



OF THE AGE. 97 

disease, and adapted to its character. The prescrip- 
tion of the Great Physician would be adapted to the 
internal nature of the disease : — Notice now the power 
and application of remedial truth concentrated at this 
point— "He that is angry with his brother without 
cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and who- 
soever shall say to his brother, Raca, [a hard and ma- 
lignant feeling], shall be in danger of the council : 
but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, [a feeling of ma- 
lignity and contempt combined], shall be in danger of 
hell fire. Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the 
altar, and there rememberest that thy brother has aught 
against thee; leave thy gift before the altar, and go 
thy way ; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then 
come and offer thy gift." (Matt, v, 22-25). 

Every one will remember the numerous and striking 
instances o*f the application of truth to an uncharitable 
heart : " Judge not ; for with whatsoever judgment ye 
judge, ye shall be judged again." " Forgive when ye 
stand praying, if ye hope to be forgiven." " Love and 
pray for your enemies." " Overcome evil with good." 
Here are precepts which are applied to the source of 
evil in the mind; and which directly antagonize the 
evil exercises to which the soul is propense. Some such 
precepts may be found scattered in isolated sentences 
in Pagan writers ; but nowhere but in the New Testa- 
e 9 



98 LIVING QUESTIONS 

ment are they found in absolute forms combined with 
the God-sense, and their accumulated power applied 
directly to remove the evils of the heart. 

Adaptation 3. But not only the heart, but the will, 
needs a specific application of truth. When Divine 
precept has availed to abate the evils of the heart, it is 
not always, nor often, that the benevolent activity is 
induced which Christ's example requires. Selfishness 
is natural and habitual ; and, unconsciously, it often 
perverts the religion of Christ into a religion of mere 
forms and worship. God needs nothing — not even to 
be reminded of His glorious attributes. There can be 
no religion without grateful love to God in Christ: 
but even " perfect love 7 ' without labor for the good of 
men is not obedience. It is not sufficient; and it may 
become sinful, in the sense that it is sought selfishly, 
and is a waste of religious power; not being applied 
to the will for the good of others. Machinery may be 
made to operate by steam or any other force, without 
the power being applied to any useful purpose. And 
when the steam works the engine without being applied 
to the boat, it works freely in itself, but it works use- 
lessly ; and not for the end designed by the maker. 

This form of selfishness which seeks heaven by 
worship alone — cries Lord, Lord, while we do not the 
things which Christ's precept and example require — is 



OF THE AGE. 99 

one of the most subtle and difficult to eradicate from 
the human heart. It is grounded in indolence, and 
loves religious forms and ease and respectability for 
self's sake. The world cannot be converted to Christ 
until those who profess to be His disciples deny them- 
selves and follow Him in opposing whatever injures 
men, and in labor for their good. In the reason of 
the case, therefore, the strongest power of the gospel 
would bear against selfish religion, — against faith with- 
out works. 

Is this so in the New Testament ? Let us see : The 
sacrifice of Christ is the strongest power which reaches 
the soul of the believer. This offering the New Tes- 
tament declares to be a sacrifice of self for the good of 
men (1 Pet. iii, 18); even for enemies, to make them 
friends. The mind can conceive of no greater sacri- 
fice of self on the altar of benevolence. Christ's life, 
also, was entirely consecrated to labor for the temporal 
and spiritual good of those in need. And having lived 
as an example, He says to every one, " Take up your 
cross daily and follow me." It is duty to pray ; and 
it is pleasant to read and hear essays concerning Christ's 
character and human duties. This is not only pleasant 
but to many it is profitable. But if Christ's example 
and precept is the standard, no man is following the 
Saviour in the narrow way who is not prompted to 



100 LIVING QUESTIONS 

personal labor for man's redemption from ignorance 
and sin. 

In' this matter of Christian obedience, good men 
sometimes mislead others. We have just read a little 
book written by an excellent and able minister, in 
which he portrays the continued peace of those who 
exercise faith ; and who in all social and business rela- 
tions maintain a character without offence. This book 
contains but a single sentence, incidentally expressed, 
in regard to the duty of personally commending Christ 
to those in a state of sin. The Christian may find 
rest if not comfort in such quiescence in the Divine 
will. This is the ultimate state sought by Brahmaism, 
Buddhism, and Islamism ; but conformity to Christ 
finds peace and joy, not in quiescence, but in active 
service for the salvation of men. The vital difference 
between Paganism and Christianity is, that one produces 
indolent worship, the other active duty. The one by 
conformity to Brahm seeks quiescence in God, the 
other by conformity to Christ produces active effort for 
man. The state of heart we have noticed may, perhaps, 
be called piety in the sense of purity; and it is the 
source from which spiritual impulse should reach the 
will, but it is not the holiness which Christ's sacrifice 
and example require. " He died for all, that they that 
live should not live unto themselves." 



OF THE AGE. 101 

Prayer and benevolent desire do not fulfil the re- 
quirements of the New Testament without correspond- 
ing action. Many people pray that God would re- 
lieve the poor, the needy, and the sick, — just as though 
God personally distributed money and bread and medi- 
cine. The inspired teacher says : "If a brother or 
sister be naked and destitute of daily food, and one 
of you say unto him, Depart in peace ! Be ye warmed 
and filled ! notwithstanding ye give them not those 
things which are needful to the body — what doth it 
profit? Even so faith, if it have not works, is dead, 
being alone." Man needs specific instruction and ur- 
gent impulse at this point to lead him to follow Christ 
in benevolent labor, without which no precept, no 
prayer, will redeem men from ignorance and sin. 
Now, the sacrifice and service of Christ, as written 
in the New Testament, is a perfect and merciful adap- 
tation to promote the accomplishment of this end ; 
and certainly as faith in Christ's sacrifice and example 
increases, the world will, in the end, be a brotherhood 
in Christ. 

Adaptation 4. It is necessary, as love and labor are 
required together in Christian life, that the love of the 
Lawgiver should be manifested in connection with his 
will. As faith without works is dead, so works with- 
out love are dead. (Heb. vi, 1.) But the manifestation 

9* 



102 LIVING QUESTIONS 

of love by the Lawgiver is the only thing that can 
beget love in those to whom the law is given. Every- 
thing begets its kind — love begets love. Love is both 
a reconciling and a propulsive power. It desires to 
give the precept that will benefit others, while it mani- 
fests the affection that reconciles them to obedience. 
Hence law and love are one in Christ. (" God Re- 
vealed," Book II, chap, i.) He revealed the law by 
His life and precept, at the same time that He revealed 
love by His life and sacrifice. ~No man can believe in 
Christ's life without believing in His law ; nor in His 
death without believing in His love. Law and love 
unite in His ministrations. To love God in Christ, 
is to love the Lawgiver; and love to the Lawgiver is 
the only religious impulse to obedience. The New 
Testament inculcates the service of a son, not of a 
servant. " The law came by Moses, but love and 
truth by Jesus Christ." 

Adaptation 5. But there are two tables of the law 
— one requiring love to God as tlie Lawgiver; the 
other love to man as a neighbor and brother. We 
are required to labor for man as the end and aim of 
religions life; but we are required to labor for him 
as a brother, in obedience to God as a Father. 

The law, therefore, requires generic love to man — 
that is, love to man as man, and action for individuals 



OF THE AGE. 103 

according; to their need. A mother loves all her chil- 
dren alike ; but if one is sick, or in danger, she neg- 
lects all the others — perhaps she does not even think 
of them — to attend to the wants of the needy one. 
And every father who loves his son will endeavor to 
form the character of that son into accordance with 
his highest ideal of human character. But the world 
furnished no standard of the true man, any more than 
it did a standard of the true God. Men had lost the 
knowledge of both the true God and the true man. 
Heroism, philosophy, intellect, wealth, power, are the 
earthly estimates of " the highest style of man." But 
to love the character of man as thus exhibited, is to 
corrupt the mind, and mislead effort by a false standard. 
" How, then, shall we know what man's character 
ought to be in a sinful world, in order that we may 
labor to conform others to that standard and labor in 
accordance with their needs ? The answer to this in- 
quiry shows not only the whole law fulfilled in Christ, 
but presents Christ in special and blessed adaptation to 
man's nature and his wants. Consecration to Christ 
produces love to God and man at the same time. God 
and man are united in His person. In loving Him we 
love the true God as He is, and the true man as he should 
be. AVhen Christ becomes the standard of character and 
duty in any mind, labor, from the very nature of love 



101 LIVING QUESTIONS 

and reason, will be directed to make others like Him. 
Tims, in loving Christ, we love the true God and the true 
man in one. We obey both tables of the law at the same 
time ; and we obey the law as the will of the Law-giver. 
The following propositions have been proved seriatim: 

1. Man by nature is a cultivator, and is himself 
capable of cultivation. 

2. No species can raise itself above its natural level, 
but must be elevated by a nature superior to its own. 

3. The mental constitution of animals and man shows 
that man is the cultivator of nature, and that God is the 
cultivator of man. 

4. Written or sign-language is the only adapted means 
of elevating man from a barbarous to a civilized state. 

5. Nature furnished no signs of ideas that would 
reveal the true character of God. 

6. Moses was a sign-maker ; and in the New Testa- 
ment the cross of Christ is the ultimate sign of Divine 
love. 

7. Truth in written language has, of itself, no power 
to change moral character. It may enlighten the intel- 
lect, but a sense of God in truth alone gives the efficacy 
to reach the heart and conscience. 

8. The Christian revelation in the New Testament has 
the characteristics which are specially adapted to the 
moral culture of mankind. 



\ 



OF THE AGE 1Q5 



9. Special adaptations of the New Testament, which 
show the agency of God as distinctly as adaptations in 
nature. 

These conclusions being legitimately established, it 
follows — 

First. — That to exclude the Bible from the common 
schools is a crime against families and against the state, 
because it withholds the only efficient means of culti- 
vating the moral faculties of the children, upon which 
depends order and law and progress in society and in the 
state. The action of the legislature or school board, 
therefore, is suicidal that rejects the Bible as the standard 
authority of morals in the school-room. 

Second. — Any effort made by sects, or churches, or 
skeptics to accomplish the exclusion of the New Testa- 
ment should be resisted by every patriot. The New 
Testament is not sectarian. Its history and morals are 
equally received by all sects. A government founded on 
the will of the people can stand only on the intelligence 
and conscience of the people ; and conscience can be rec- 
tified and empowered only by faith in Divine Revelation; 
the man, therefore, who aids ignorant or superstitious 
men of any sect to exclude from the schools that culture 
which gives light to the mind and rectitude to the con- 
science of the voter, and raises him above the influence 
of the bigot and the demagogue, should be enlightened 

E* 



106 LIVING QUESTIONS 

as an ignorant man, or resisted as an enemy to free 
government. 

Third. — It is not the amount of the Scripture read, or 
the particular version that the teacher may use, which is 
important in the case. It is the Divine authority that 
the nature of the child needs. This alone meets the 
appetency of a mind that reaches up to God. Prayer, 
recognizing God and His will, as revealed in the New 
Testament, would aid to make the life and precepts of 
Christ the standard of duty in the mind of the pupil. 
Thus by the effect of the Bible upon the teacher and the 
scholar our schools would become a beneficent power, 
developing both the intellectual and moral faculties of 
the rising generation. Upon this the stability and pros- 
perity of the great American republic depend. 

The moral necessity urged in the foregoing argument 
for the use of the Bible in school will avail against all 
objections that can be alleged against it. If it be ad- 
mitted that conscience culture of the citizen is necessary 
in order to the stability and prosperity of the republic, 
and that the God-sense in connection with truth alone 
has power to guide and quicken the conscience, then 
necessity, which knows no objection, demands the use of 
the Bible, because it is in this country the only recog- 
nized Divine teaching. 

It should be noticed, however, that many of the ob- 



OF THE AGE. 107 

jeetions alleged are irrelevant, or they do not see the 
vital principle in the case. The regard that some would 
pay to the conscience of the Papist, the Mormon, or the 
Chinese would lead tjiem to make the common schools 
godless rather than impinge upon the convictions of the 
superstitious, the vicious, or the pagan. Such a course 
would be a public recognition of superstition, Mormon- 
ism, and heathenism as equal with Christian morals. 
It would foster a difference among citizens in regard to 
the proper standard of duty, and cherish the most malig- 
nant and hurtful of all social alienations — religious 
dissension. To educate the people at the cost of the 
state in the common schools without a common standard 
of morals is to encourage them to perpetuate their own 
diverse standards, or to reject all standards of duty. 

Differences of opinion with regard to books and parts 
of the Bible do not affect the vital principle, which re- 
quires truth, with the God-sense. There may be parts 
and books of the Bible which in our time are profitless. 
Some parts of the Old and imperfect dispensation may 
be unfit to be read in school ; but no one, either Jew or 
Gentile, will object to the moral teaching of the Ten 
Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount. Selec- 
tions from the Bible should be used as elements of moral 
culture, as select lessons in reading and examples in 
arithmetic are used as elements of intellectual culture. 



108 LIVING QUESTIONS 

And in fitting children for citizens of a free state the one 
is as necessary as the other. The Bible is not a sectarian 
book — even the objection to the version can be obviated 
by the use of the Lord's Prayer and lessons from the 
Sermon on the Mount, which are essentially the same in 
all versions. 

It has been said, let the schools be godless and Chris- 
tians will give Bible instruction at home. But that is 
to say professing Christian families alone should be 
qualified for citizenship, while it is the ignorant foreign 
and native population that need the aid of both intellec- 
tual and Bible culture. The professing Christian fam- 
ilies in the country that would read the Bible to their 
children are probably not one in fifty of the whole 
population. 

The Bible always has been the badge of Progression. 
The common school, with the vital principle of the God- 
sense involved, was the chief legacy of those Protestants 
who originated our free institutions. They established 
as part and preservative of our democratic institutions — 
" Free schools for all and the Bible in school," as the 
hope of national prosperity. Is it wise, after an experi- 
ence of the value of their legacy, in promoting the pub- 
lic good, to inaugurate godless schools for those to whom 
we transmit the interests of the future for time and 
eternity ? 



OF THE AGE. 109 

While it might be expected that some who oppose all 
acknowledgment of God by oath, assent, or worship, 
would be in favor of godless schools, we see not how a 
Christian can be so. The precept which he himself 
accepts as the rule of duty requires the teaching of BiJ>le 
truth as the "saving health" of the individual and of" 
the public mind. The precept is not to give Bible in- 
struction only to one's own family, but to " teach all 
nations." To believe the Christian Scriptures and not 
favor all proper ways to disseminate knowledge of Christ's 
precepts, as authority in matters of duty, is contrary both 
to the principle and the practice of the Christian religion. 
Let the New Testament, without comment, be read in 
the school, and if any parent wishes to give sectarian or 
even anti-christian instruction at home (which will not 
be true of one in a hundred), this is a free land, and 
each parent, Christian, Mormon, or Chinese, has control 
in his own house, but not in schools sustained by the 
state. There, if morals are taught at all, one only 
standard with the God-sense attached is a necessity. 
One standard to prevent diversity as to the rule of life ; 
and the God-sense to give that rule authority with the 
conscience. 

10 



HO LIVING qUESTIONS 



CHAPTER IV. 



AN INQUIRY CONCERNING THE BIBLE DOCTRINE OF 



The Egyptians believed in a future life, a future 
judgment, and future rewards and punishments. The 
family of Jacob were residents in Egypt about four hun- 
dred years, until the twelve patriarchs became a nation 
of twelve tribes. The man Moses " was learned in all 
the wisdom of the Egyptians." He must have had a 
perfect understanding of their religious rites and doc- 
trines ; yet he rejected their opinions and taught neither 
a future life nor future retribution. In whatever way 
this fact is to be accounted for, still the statement itself 
will not be doubted by well-informed readers that in 
the five books of Moses men are accounted mortal, and 
all retribution is confined to the present life.* 

* There are passages in the Old Testament which indite a be- 
lief in some sort of latent life in the grave, or in Sheol — an under- 



OF THE AGE. \\\ 

The blessings and curses of the law were awarded in 
this world both to the nation and to individuals. The 
only future retribution at all indicated relates to the fu- 
ture history of the people, and the liability of their pos- 
terity to suffer for the sins of their fathers. This view 
of the Mosaic Dispensation is given by all learned ex- 
positors from Warburton to Stewart, and is accepted by 
all Christian scholars. The future life of Moses is the 
transmitted life of nature — a succession of individuals 
propagated from parent to offspring, as in the vegetable 
and animal kingdoms — of the genus, not of the indi- 
vidual. This immortality in their descendants was the 
hope of the patriarchs, promised by the Lord and veri- 
fied in their history. 

The eldest Scripture on this subject seems plain. It 
is written in the symbolic history of creation, "And 
now, lest man put forth his hand, and take of the tree of 
life, and eat, and live forever : therefore the Lord God 
sent him forth from the Garden of Eden, to till the 
ground from whence he was taken." Whatever this lan- 
guage may indicate in regard to man's future life, if he 
had continued obedient to God, it cannot be doubted 
that apart from the Tree of Life, from which he was 

world of silence and shadows, where souls were supposed to repose 
after they had been gathered to their fathers. But retribution, 
according to Moses, is in the present life. 



112 LIVING QUESTIONS 

now excluded, he was not immortal. And yet that Adam, 
who had no immortal life in him, begat an immortal 
progeny, is the unphilosophical and absurd position of 
most theological teachers. The Scriptures teach that 
immortality is conferred by the Tree of Life — the Bread 
of Life — the Lord of Life. u He that eateth of this 
bread shall never die." But if immortality is a con- 
ferred " gift/ 7 possessed only by those united to Christ 
by a living faith, then, under the Old Testament as 
under the New, " there were many called but few chosen." 

Jesus states the fact distinctly that He has been the 
source of Eternal Life in all dispensations, but that 
few, compared with the many, possessed the boon. He 
says in John v, 39, — " Search the Scriptures ; for in them 
ye think ye have Eternal Life : and they are they which 
testify of Me." At the same time he recognizes the 
fact that those to whom He spake were destitute of this 
Life. The whole passage reads, " Search the Scriptures ; 
for in them ye think ye have Eternal Life : and they are 
they which testify of Me. And ye will not come to 
Me, that ye might have life. I receive not honor from 
men. But I know you, that ye have not the love of God 
in you." Affectionate obedience is life. They Avere 
destitute of this, and they would not come unto Him to 
receive it. 

It is difficult in our time to determine the various 



OF THE AGE. 113 

views prevailing among the Jews in regard to Eternal 
Life. It is clear, however, from the general tenor of 
the New Testament, that it was a prevailing belief that 
an endless life after death was attainable ; and the great 
question of the time with thoughtful men was what they 
should do to obtain it. Whether by a resurrection from 
the dead, or by a direct gift from above, in some form it 
was the great inquiry in the time of the Messiah. Hence 
the young ruler's question, u What shall I do to inherit 
Eternal Life?" He came in haste, and asked the ques- 
tion earnestly upon his knees. So it was also the ab- 
sorbing question with the disciples of Jesus. And their 
faith that through Him the gift of Eternal Life could 
be gained was the bond of union that held them in alle- 
giance when others turned away. Peter's answer dis- 
closes the burden of their hearts on this subject: " Lord, 
to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of Eternal 
Life." 

To this great question of the soul Jesus gives an an- 
swer. It is a vital point in His teaching, and in that of 
His disciples. He stated that He came into the world 
that men might have life, and that they might have it 
more abundantly. 

In the Scriptures, Christ is the source of Eternal Life, 
as Adam is of natural life. The transmission of mortal 
life from Adam and immortal life from Christ is stated 

10* 



114 LIVING QUESTIONS 

with great distinctness by Paul in his first letter to the 
church at Corinth.* "As it is written, The first man 
Adam was made a living soul — the ' last Adam' — Christ 
— (, d life-giving spirit? Howbeit that was not first 
which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and after- 
wards that which is spiritual. The first man is of the 
earth, earthy : the second is the Lord from heaven. As 
is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy : and as 
is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly." 
Paul evidently believed that those who bore only the 
nature of the first Adam were mortal, and would perish 
as mortal beings, while those who bore the image of 
Christ were immortal. Hence with the nature of Adam, 
as mere mortal men, all die; so in Christ — those who 
are born from above, " never die, but have Eternal 
Life." 

Many Scriptures certify the fact that immortality is 
only for those united with Christ by faith. " This is 
the Record ," — i.e., the certified truth of the Scriptures, 
— "that God hath given to us Eternal Life, and this 
life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and 
he that hath not the Son hath not life."\ It is difficult 
to misinterpret these words. 

" As Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that 
He should give Eternal Life to as many as Thou hast 
* 1 Cor. xv, 45-49. f Jno. v, 11, 12. 



OF THE AGE. 115 

given Him,"* — i.e., All flesh, all mankind, had no Eter- 
nal Life; but from the Father, through the Son, it was 
given to believers, as it is written — " This is the True 
God and Eternal Life." 

" And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilder- 
ness, so must the Son of man be lifted up : that who- 
soever believeth on Him should not perish, but have 
Eternal Life," — i.e., those who do not receive Eternal 
Life in Christ will perish — " And I give unto them 
Eternal Life ; and they shall never perish, neither shall 
any pluck them out of my hand." 

The mortal and immortal natures are, of course, 
diverse from each other; the one being earthly in its in- 
stincts and propensions, the other heavenly. The natural, 
earthly nature has to be resisted, crucified, in order that 
the soul may grow into the full stature of the new man 
— " which is created anew in Christ Jesus." 

This new nature, superinduced upon the old natural 
faculties, is as immortal as the source from which it is 
derived. Those " born again" are " made partakers of 
the Divine nature." They are a new species developed 
from the old, natural Adamic species. They have a life 
above sense, they cannot therefore die any more, but are 
like unto the angels. " Because Christ lives they shall 
* Jno. xvii, 2: and Jno. iii, 14, 15: and Jno. x, 28. 



11(3 LIVING QUESTIONS 

live also" — that is, their life is as endless as the source 
from which it is drawn — " Their life is hid with Christ 
in God." 

On the contrary, it is difficult to misunderstand the 
doom of the Adamic species, who have not passed from 
death unto life. All the words which the languages of 
the East in that age furnished, which signify final extinc- 
tion, are applied to them. The sacred writers them- 
selves settled the definitions of some of these words, 
especially a word which never signifies anything but the 
dissolution or extinction of the subject. " If Christ be 
not raised," says Paul, "your hope is vain, and they 
who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished" — i.e., in 
such case deceased Christians had perished; certainly not 
damned endlessly, but had ceased to be. 

Christ presents Himself as the source of Eternal Life, 
and affirms that there is no spiritual life out of connec- 
tion with Him. " I am the vine, ye are the branches." 
He speaks of those "whose life is hid with Christ in 
God," and says to the believer, " Because I live, ye shall 
live also" — i.e., their life will be as endless as the source 
from which it springs. 

But, on the other hand, what is the doom of those 
who are not "born again" — those who have no life in 
them ? 

The apostle, in his letter to the Galatian Christians, 



OF THE AGE. 117 

says, — " He that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap 
corruption ; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the 
Spirit reap life everlasting" — i.e., one shall end in the 
corruption of the body, the other shall inherit eternal 
life. The termination of life in the death of the body is 
made as strong as language can make it in the passage, 
2 Pet. ii, 1 2. The wicked " shall utterly perish in their 
own corruption." 

The doom of the sinner is placed in contradistinction 
to that of the saint. Jesus said, " Wide is the gate and 
broad is the way that leadeth to destruction" — (not to 
endless misery. Such a phrase does not occur in the 
Bible) — a and many there be that go in thereat: because 
strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, that leadeth 
unto life, and few there be that find it." 

And again, " For whosoever will save his life shall 
lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake 
shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall 
gain the whole world, and lose his own life? or what 
will a man give in exchange for his life?" The word 
rendered by the translators life in one case and soul in 
the other is the same word in the original. It should 
therefore be the same in both verses. The translators 
did not design probably to deceive their readers, but, 
bound by the traditions of men who accepted the Pla- 
tonic doctrine of natural immortality, they have hidden, 



118 LIVING QUESTIONS 

under an erroneous translation, the plain teaching of the 
Master. 

The apostle says, — " The wages of sin is death" (not 
endless misery) ; " but the gift of God is Eternal Life 
through Jesus Christ our Lord;" and James says, — " He 
that converteth a sinner from the error of his ways shall 
save a soul from death." 

That this death is after the dissolution of the body 
and refers directly to the destruction of the soul, is ren- 
dered certain by the words of Jesus, — "Fear not them 
which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul : 
but fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body 
in hell." 

As nothing is said in the Scriptures of eternal misery, 
but every word in regard to future doom has the import 
of death for the unregenerate, or life for the believer, 
it will be asked, what has given prevalence to the pagan 
idea of eternal misery in our church creeds ? The an- 
swer is, that the doctrine which attributes a demoniac 
feature to the character of God rests upon a miscon- 
struction of a single passage in the New Testament. 
This passage is conspicuous, and is supposed, by the advo- 
cates of the doctrine of endless misery, to settle the ques- 
tion in favor of a doctrine which is contrary both to the 
sense of justice and of mercy. 

The passage referred to is that in Matthew xxv, 46: 



OF THE AGE. 119 

I 
" These shall go away into everlasting punishment : but 
the righteous into life eternal." 

The word translated punishment in this verse is one 
of equivocal import. It is used but seldom in the New 
Testament, and has no such meaning as endless misery. 
There is but a single passage in the fathers which defines 
the sense in which it was used in the primitive church. 
In the Clementines, iii, 6, it is said, " Those who have 
not repented will come to an end in the punishment of 
fire. (xoXdffswq being the same word as in Matt, xxv, 
46 :) " They shall be put out, becoming extinct by eter- 
nal fire" (nupi aia)v\a~). According to the Clementine 
view, the apostles understood the eternal punishment in 
Matthew not as endless misery but as destruction in ever- 
lasting fire. 

It is strange that we have not perceived that this 
view is that taught in the chapter which contains this 
verse. The character of the punishment is strictly de- 
fined by the preceding verses (34-41). The Eternal 
Life is an inheritance in the kingdom of God. The 
everlasting punishment is to " depart into everlasting 
fire." This is the judgment sentence, — the final doom. 
The last verse of the chapter refers to verses 34-41, and 
only announces that the parties upon whom this sentence 
was pronounced enter upon the reward of life or depart 
to receive the penalty of everlasting fire. 



120 LIVING QUESTIONS 

\ 

We come, then,* to the inquiry, what is the doom pro- 
nounced in the sentence, " Depart ye cursed into ever- 
lasting fire" ? 

Fire, in the Scriptures, is used as a symbol of puri- 
fication and of destruction. When applied by Christ 
as the penalty of sin, it is always used in the latter sense. 
And, as though Jesus designed that men might not 
doubt on this subject, he adopts a figure which always ^ 
awakened in the minds of those who heard the words 
spoken the sense of a destroying element, and nothing 
else. Gehenna — the Greek word translated hell — was 
the place where the corrupting garbage of the city of 
Jerusalem was consumed in a fire kept perpetually 
burning, in the valley of Hinnom. This perpetual 
fire, consuming corrupt matter, was the figure used 
to signify the destruction awaiting the unregenerate. 
All who have not " entered into life" are said to be in 
" the broad way that leadeth to destruction, where the 
worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched." We are 
admonished "not to fear them that kill the body, but 
after that have no more that they can do ; but to fear 
Him who after He hath killed hath power to destroy 
both soul and body in hell." The fear in the language 
of Christ is, not that the body alone shall be destroyed, 
but that both soul and body shall be destroyed — the one 
as certainly as the other. 



OF THE AGE. 121 

Not only the symbol itself but the form of the state- 
ment which Christ uses would seem to render misappre- 
hension impossible. But, by a strange perversion, which, 
I think, does not exist in regard to any other doctrine 
taught by the Saviour, just the opposite sense from that 
plainly signified has been attached to His words. In 
regard to the righteous and the wicked, Jesus taught, in 
Matthew iii, 12, "He will gather the wheat into His 
garner, but will burn up the chaff with unquenchable 
fire." The churches teach that the chaff will not be 
burned up, but instead of being consumed it will be as 
everlasting as the fire which consumes it. In the para- 
ble of the tares (Matt, xiii, 30) it is said, " Gather 
first the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, 
but gather the wheat into my barn." And an exposition 
of this parable is given by the Master himself — " As, 
therefore, the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, 
so shall it be at the end of the world ; the Son of Man 
shall send His angels and they shall gather out of His 
kingdom all things that offend, and they that do iniq- 
uity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there 
shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth." Even if the 
reference here be to the Jewish state or city, the idea of 
destruction is the plain import. 

The judgment doom of destruction by fire is recog- 
nized in various forms by the apostles. Paul says to 

11 



122 LIVING QUESTIONS 

the church at Thessalonica, "Rest with us, when the 
Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven in flaming 
fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and 
obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall 
be punished with everlasting destruction from the pres- 
ence of God and the glory of His power. " The final 
penalty upon the wicked, according to this passage, is 
destruction in the conflagration of the world at the 
second coming of Christ.* "Whose end is to be 
burned." 

Peter says, " The heavens and the earth which are 
now, are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day 
of judgment and perdition of ungodly men." That is, 
the day of judgment, the end of the earth by fire, and the 
destruction of ungodly men will occur at the same time. 

This final destruction at the end of the world is in 
reserve, we are taught, for evil angels as well as 
wicked men. Peter says, "The angels that kept not 
their first estate were cast down to Tartarus, confined in 
darkness till the judgment of the great day." The 
demons also address Jesus as knowing their final doom 
when they say (Mark i, 24), " Art thou come to destroy 
us before the time ? We know who thou art, the holy 
one of God." If these Scriptures be true, evil agents 
will be destroyed at the dissolution of the present im- 
* See McKnigtit, 2 Thess. c, 1. 



OF THE AGE. 123 

perfect physical system, and there will ensue "a new 
heavens and a new earth in which dwelleth righteous- 
ness." 

The last we hear of wicked spirits and wicked men in 
the Scriptures is the decisive testimony of the Revelator 
in closing the Scripture record. " I saw the dead, small 
and great, stand before God, and the books were opened : 
and another book was opened, which is the Book of 
Life, and the dead were judged; and death and hell 
[i.e., the wicked on the earth and in the intermediate 
state] were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second 
death" — i.e., the death of the soul — " And whosoever 
was not found written in the Book of Life was cast into 
the lake of fire."* 

* "We see not how the Second Advent of Christ and the de- 
struction of the wicked can he denied without a direct denial of 
Scripture doctrine. After the evangelist, Moody, left Chicago, 
some, who hold to the traditions of the elders, complained that he 
had not preached the Second Advent doctrine until the close of 
his successful lahor. It is time that those who deny the Scrip- 
tures on this subject, and teach men so, should he informed that 
if the New Testament does not teach the Second Advent of Christ 
and the destruction of the wicked at the final judgment, it teaches 
nothing certainly. Can any one doubt that the Advent and the 
perdition of the ungodly is taught in the following passage ? 2 
Thess. i, 7-9: "And you who are trouhled rest with us: — when 
the Lord Jesus shall he revealed from Heaven, with His mighty 
angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not 



124 LIVING QUESTIONS 

It will, perhaps, be said by those who have accepted 
the prevalent interpretation of the New Testament in 
regard to the future life, that the import of " eternal 
misery," usually attached to such words as death, perdi- 
tion, destruction, being so generally accepted, must have 
a basis of truth. It is not true, however, that the 
best-informed men among orthodox Christians have 
accepted this evident misuse of Scripture words. John 
Locke, author of the " Bible Hand-Book," and one of 
the best informed and clearest thinkers of his time, says, 
" By reason of Adam's transgression all men are mortal 
and come to die. * * * Nobody can deny but that the 
doctrine of the gospel is, that death came upon all men 
by Adam's sin ; only that they differ about the signifi- 
cation of the word death. For some will have it to be a 
state of guilt, wherein not only he, but all his posterity, 
were so involved that every one descended from him 
deserved endless torment in hell-fire. It seems a strange 
way of understanding a law which requires the plainest 
and directest words, that by death should be meant 
eternal misery. Could any suppose that by a law that 
says, for felony you shall die, that he should not lose his 
life, but be kept alive in perpetual and terrible torments? 

God, and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall 
he punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of God 
and the glory of His power." 



OF THE AGE. 125 

I confess that by death here I can understand nothing 
but a ceasing to be, — the losing of all actions of life and 
sense."* The World's Christian Alliance, in London, 
would have rejected eternal misery if American dele- 
gates had not favored it. 

Dr. Watts, likewise, although he seems to have be- 
lieved in the prevalent doctrine, did not assume to find 
his authority in the Bible. He says, " There is not one 
place of Scripture that occurs to me where the word 
death, as it was first threatened in the law of innocence, 
necessarily signifies a certain miserable immortality of 
the soul, either to Adam, the actual sinner, or to his 

posterity."! 

Archbishop Tillotson held the same view of the sub- 
ject. He says, " The immortality of the soul is rather 
taken for granted than revealed in the Scriptures." And 
with this agree the views of Archbishop Whately, a 
writer popular with all denominations of Christians at 
the present time. These eminent men mostly believed 
that the Scriptures teach that death is the extinction of 
life. 

Some of the passages that relate directly to the future 
of the wicked teach the destruction of the soul in words 
that can have no other sense, as in the passage 2 Peter, 

* Reasonableness of Christianity, \ 1. 

f Ruin and Recovery of Mankind, $ 3. 

11* 



126 LIVING QUESTIONS 

ii, 11, " shall utterly perish in their own corruption." 
If such passages do not affirm the perdition of the soul 
with the body, it is not possible for inspiration to teach 
the doctrine. 

Immortality and eternal life are likewise spoken of as 
an end gained by faith and obedience ; hence believers 
who l< seek for glory honor immortality, receive eternal 
life." "He that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh 
reap corruption ; but he that soweth to the spirit shall 
of the spirit reap life everlasting." 

It may be said that if all die except those in union 
with Christ by faith, the waste in the intelligent creation 
is immense. This is true, but it is the rule of the crea- 
tion in regard to all things. The waste of sun-rays in 
empty space cannot be computed. The waste of seed is 
exceedingly great. A single tree produces seeds enough 
to stock a large area of the earth's surface, but not one 
seed to each tree germinates. Waste (if that is the 
proper word to use) is the order of nature; hence 
" many are called but few chosen. " 

The inaccuracy of the common rendering of New 
Testament words the import of which is death will be 
seen by noticing the assumption and irrelevancy of those 
writers who endeavor to argue from the Scriptures in 
favor of eternal misery. A brief treatise on the subject 
has been written recently by Prof. Bartlett, of the 



OF THE AGE. 127 

Chicago Theological Seminary. Mr. t Bartlett is a 
scholar, and a teacher of young men who are preparing 
to preach the gospel. Yet, in our opinion, there is not 
in his treatise a single argument that is not sophistical 
or inapplicable to the subject in hand. While a clear 
writer on other subjects, the author seems to have been 
conscious that his arguments were fallacious, as he has 
not mentioned the words eternal torment or eternal 
misery in the entire treatise. His conclusions in every 
case relate to something else. His first evidence is that 
God is pure and good, and, therefore, as He is holy and 
man a sinner, the sinner and God cannot dwell together 
in peace. This is a very different conclusion from that 
which affirms that God will consign one class to eternal 
misery. 

Equally misleading is the treatment of certain words 
which, without reason, are taken to teach eternal misery. 
The strongest instance will give the force of all he says : 
Jesus said, " Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how 
can ye escape the damnation of hell?" Mr. Bartlett 
knows that the word translated hell is Gehenna, and that 
it never means endless life in torment, but always ever- 
lasting destruction in the perpetual fire of Gehenna, 
which consumed every thing that was cast into it. 

The author argues that such phrases as u Broad is the 
way that leadeth to destruction," to "Be cast away," 



128 LIVING QUESTIONS 

to " Destroy both soul and body in hell," mean eternal 
misery, although the Greek works have no such mean- 
ing in them, even in a secondary sense. Such an import 
is forced upon them in disregard both of the profane 
and Scriptural acceptation. The phrase to destroy both 
soul and body, the one as much as the other, in the view 
of Prof. Bartlett, means to destroy the body in hell, but 
keep the soul alive in eternal misery. 

This able author further argues that as the Bible 
everywhere speaks of but two classes, — the saint and the 
sinner, — they will be doomed to diverse destinies. But 
what is that destiny? He leaves his readers to the 
monstrous assumption, not deducible- in any way from 
his premises, that one class is consigned to eternal 
misery. 

Then follows the chief chapter in the book, which is 
spoken of as containing direct proof of the doctrine to 
sustain which the book was written. The author man- 
ages to get through this chief chapter, as he had pre- 
vious ones, without once using the words eternal misery, 
always avoiding it for some other phrase. (There is 
something suggestive in a man's omitting to state what 
he is endeavoring to prove.) 

The direct proof which he adduces from Scripture 
texts is three passages in the Book of Revelation 
which use the phrase " forever and ever," in regard 



OF THE AGE. 129 

to the punishment of the wicked. Such passages as 
" The smoke of their torment arose forever and ever" 
it is assumed relate to eternal misery. Now, we do 
not need to show that by almost common consent 
among expositors, these passages relate to the destruc- 
tion of the Pagan or Papal apostasies. If one of 
Mr. Bartlett's students should ask him whether the 
symbolic history of this book, with only the exceptions 
of a few closing verses, relate to the present or the 
future world, he would tell them that it was generally 
taken to relate to the history of the church on earth. 
Some interpreters erroneously confine the whole book 
to the reign of Nero, and the persecutions of that 
period ; others apply the prophecy to the history of 
the church till the end of time ; yet passages from 
this symbolic book, which relate to the present world, 
and which all the best commentators profess not fully 
to understand, are the burden of direct proof to sustain 
the doctrine of eternal misery in a future world. 

In addition to the passages from the Apocalypse, a 
passage from 2 Peter, and one from Jude are quoted, 
both of which are considered, by many exegetical 
scholars, of doubtful authority. 

In speaking of the parable of the Rich Man and 
Lazarus, the professor, unintentionally, no doubt, mis- 
leads his readers. He says: "If, even in Hades, 



130 LIVING QUESTIONS 

before the resurrection and the judgment, all help and 
hope are so utterly excluded, how shall it be in Ge- 
henna, after the resurrection of the body — the resur- 
rection of damnation, and the final judgment?" Now, 
this distinction is a fallacy, and any man who has read 
the Essay at the close of Josephus, or the fragments 
from the Rabbies, which give the usus loquendi of the 
times, as Mr. Bartlett undoubtedly has done, ought 
not to have written it. Gehenna, in the parable, is 
located in Hades. In the language of the time of 
Christ, Hades contained both Paradise and Gehenna, — 
an impassable gulf separating the good from the evil. 
In the parable, therefore, Hades and Gehenna do not 
succeed each other. They are coeval. One contains 
the other. 

The New Testament doctrine that Eternal Life is 
only promised to those who are united to Christ by 
faith will not immediately prevail. No truth prevails 
at once against old errors. Eternal punishment was 
taught out of the Old Testament Scriptures, as well 
as the New, for seventeen hundred years, although 
not a passage in Moses teaches future retribution in 
any form, but on the contrary, confines all retribution 
to the present life. And even now, it is said, four- 
fifths of the clergy teach endless misery from the Old 
Testament. Professor Bartlett, however, makes no 



OF THE AGE. 131 

reference to the elder Scriptures in his argument for 
endless misery. One advance, therefore, is gained in 
our day. The truth that life is only found in union 
with Christ is initiated ; and, slowly but surely, it 
will remove the imputation against the Divine char- 
acter, and triumph in the Christian Church. "When 
men are led to believe that life after death is only by 
union with Christ, they will be more likely to turn from 
the broad way " that leadeth to destruction." 



132 LIVING QUESTIONS 



CHAPTER Y. 

THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 

Hon. Judge Henry Booth, of Chicago, delivered 
before tli£ Philosophical Society a lecture controverting 
the foundation miracle of the New Testament, the resur- 
rection of Christ. The following reply was delivered 
before the same society. The judge did not question 
the fairness of the references to his address, except a 
disavowal of the use of the word " abandoned" in con- 
nection with the name of Mary Magdalene. 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen, — I hope 
I am suitably thankful for the courtesy by which I 
occupy this platform to-night. Many will ask why this 
reply, after so much has been written on the subject. 
The answer is, that the request to review the lecture 
before the society to which it was delivered was made 
before others had published their views in regard to it. 
And, besides, it ought to be stated that our most worthy 



OF THE AGE. 133 

pastors are not often the best polemics. Skeptics are 
generally acquainted with the common arguments of 
theologians on questions of doubt ; and a discourse that 
may strengthen the faith of the Christian often — with- 
out the author knowing why — strengthens the doubts of 
the skeptic. Let me say here, that in the use of such 
words as skeptic I mean nothing invidious ; and in allu- 
sions to church errors, papal or Protestant, I cite only 
to vindicate the truth of history in regard to topics in- 
troduced in the lecture. I have myself passed through 
a season of doubt, and ought to be able to respect honest 
inquirers. 

In reviewing the statements and reasonings of the 
lecturer, I shall notice some of his introductory remarks 
as preliminary to what I have myself to say. These do 
not relate to the harmony of the evangelists, but with 
many persons they will have more force against the truth 
of religion than the main discussion. This will lead me, 
of course, not only to controvert the position of the lec- 
turer, but to say some things affirmative of the Christian 
faith. 

I shall endeavor to put what I have to say in a philo- 
sophical form, and shall not depart from the evangelical 
exposition of the Scriptures. I believe that the truth 
of Christianity can be best maintained upon experimental 
and inductive principles, and that these, in the end, will 

12 



134 LIVING QUESTIONS 

correct both theological misapprehensions and honest 
doubt. 

The first thing noticeable in the lecture is a disserta- 
tion upon the jaded subject, "What is truth?" Christ 
professes to tell us what the truth is in regard to man's 
spiritual interests. He says, "If you continue in My 
word ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make 
you free." And again, " Sanctify them through the truth ; 
Thy word is truth." And again, u I am the way, the 
truth, and the life." Jesus affirms in these passages : 
(1) There is religious truth ; (2) that the truth purifies 
the human mind ; and (3) that it is attainable only by 
Him and through Him. 

Illustrations and similes are good in didactic teach- 
ing, but they are not always safe in logic. In the intro- 
duction to the discussion we have the simile of the 
mountain : Truth is a mountain, and error and super- 
stition break like mist upon its summit ; and it is inti- 
mated that Christianity, or a Saviour, is among the errors 
that will be thus dissipated. Certainly not only the 
Bible, but all history, affirms that the lecturer's applica- 
tion of this figure is a mistake. If there be anything 
true in history, Christianity itself is the mountain, and 
the clouds that shadow it are the superstitions engen- 
dered by ignorance and error. A very large part of 
modern history records the resistance of New Testament 



OF THE AGE. 135 

Christianity to pagan and papal power. Her triumph 
itself is the miracle of history. She has stood, by Di- 
vine aid, like a diamond rock in the stream of time, and 
has successfully resisted the three strongest enemies to 
truth that have appeared on the earth, the pagan, the 
papal, and the atheistic powers. These three have spent 
their force against Christianity, and can never be so 
strong in the future as they have been in the past. "The 
stone cut out of the mountain without hands" has itself 
become a mountain, and is " filling the whole earth." 
Jesus refers to this rock, and says those who fall upon 
this stone will be broken, but those upon whom it shall 
fall it will grind them to powder. The light of the 
gospel is placed upon the mountain top. The mists of 
error and superstition are breaking against it ; and its 
summit, like that of the eternal Blanc, still rises, crowned 
with light, toward heaven. 

We are further told in the opening of the lecture that 
"all systems of religion, from Jove to Mahommed, have 
a basis of truth and adaptedness to the spiritual wants 
of men." It has become popular of late for those call- 
ing themselves liberal Christians to put Christianity into 
the same category with systems of idolatry and supersti- 
tion, and then speak of the good in each. Although 
it may not be wilful, still there is palpable fallacy in 
this. As the ground of all religion, man has the idea 



136 LIVING QUESTIONS 

of God and the propensity to worship ; but if the idea 
is perverted by human ignorance and sin, as it is in all 
systems of false religion, then the act of worship neces- 
sarily becomes corrupting, and hence all false religions 
are an unmitigated curse. Instead of being adapted, 
in any sense, to produce the spiritual good of men, they 
necessarily work spiritual evil, and it is historically true 
that the longer they exist in a nation the more they de- 
base the people. The Roman worship, which is the only 
one of the old religious systems specially referred to, was 
one of the best, and yet it degraded the people to the very 
lowest condition of cruelty and vice. I do not refer to 
their intellectual attainments — a devil and a saint may 
be equally intelligent. In the Augustan age — the period 
of their highest intelligence — their chief amusement at 
Rome was the murder of gladiators, and their vices had 
sunk to sodomy — the lower of the lowest depths known 
in the history of human pollution ; while, at the same 
time, child-murder and concubinage were practised with- 
out hindrance. Without their religion, which sanctified 
even bestiality (as Leda and the swan), they would have 
been less polluted, as were the ancient Germans and 
Britons whom they conquered. Gibbon says he reluc- 
tantly tells the story of their utter corruption of heart, 
and honestly records that their vices and cruelty contin- 
ued until they were removed by the coming of the gospel 



OF THE AGE. 137 

of Christ. Instead of its being true, as the lecturer tells 
us, that there was something in the old religions adapted 
to spiritual good, they were adapted to corrupt the heart, 
and especially to corrupt and degrade women. Even in 
the case of Mahommedanism, which the lecturer men- 
tions, woman is a slave and sold for lust, and heaven is 
a paradise of licentious passion. What was true of the 
Roman system was true of all the old systems of pagan 
idolatry. While the settled nations of antiquity became 
more intelligent with the lapse of years, they became, 
through the influence of these old systems of religion, 
more debased in heart. There is no exception to this in 
all history. It could not, philosophically speaking, be 
otherwise : . 

" Gods partial, changeful, passionate, unjust; 
Whose attitudes were rage, revenge, and lust," 

were adapted to sink a nation gradually into passion and 
pollution ; while the benevolence and purity of Christ 
are adapted to redeem the nations from the moral dark- 
ness and death in which their religions had enveloped 
them. 

The lecturer speaks of the Christian religion as 
" appeasing an angry God by a vicarious sacrifice." I 
supposed we had got by the time when a learned gentle- 
man, prominent in the legal profession, would assail 

12* 



138 LIVING QUESTIONS 

Christianity by caricaturing her doctrines. There may 
have been teachers of a past age who held such heathen 
notions in regard to God, but no such view is held in 
Chicago, where this lecture was delivered. The Xew 
Testament teaching, which forbids such a view, is plain 
when freed from the traditions of the elders. Allow me 
to state it in a somewhat logical form. " God is love." 
Benevolence in the nature seeks manifestation in action. 
But benevolence can be manifested in no way but by 
sacrifice, — i.e., acting and suffering for the good of the 
needy. Hence, if God is love (to which all agree) His 
love could never be known and felt by men but by a 
sacrifice made for the good of men. But that sacrifice 
could be made for the good of human beings so that it 
could be known and felt by them only in man's nature ; 
because like natures only are in sympathy. There- 
fore, God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto 
Himself, — i.e., so exhibiting His character that believers 
would be reconciled to Him as their Lord and lawgiver. 
Q. E. D. 

But, it will be asked, do not ministers constantly 
proclaim that Christ bore the curse of the law for us — 
that He saves us from hell by His suffering ? Certainly 
they do. The curse of the law is the death of the soul ; 
as destruction is the certain and necessary doom of every- 
thing out of conformity with law. 



OF THE AGE. 139 

Now, the moral law of the universe is love. Love 
God, the Supreme Being, supremely, and love others as 
yourself, because they are equal in right and nature with 
yourself. But while this law commands love, it cannot 
beget it in human hearts, and it cannot arrest the conse- 
quences of transgression : sacrifice alone can do this. 
Sacrifice is a manifestation of love, and nothing but love 
can beget love, which is what the law requires, — i.e., 
where two beings are alienated, one must approach the 
other in love (not in law), or the alienation will be 
eternal. 

Therefore, " What the law could not do in that it was 
weak through the flesh" (i.e., had no power in itself to 
transform the selfish human nature), " God, sending His 
own son in the likeness of sinful flesh" (i.e., with human 
sensibilities, that like might affect like), " and by a sin- 
offering condemned sin in the flesh" (i.e., by a manifes- 
tation of benevolence, which is the nature of God, He 
condemns the selfishness which exists by nature in man, 
and begets love in its stead), "that the righteousness 
which the law requires (which is love) might be fulfilled 
in believers who walk not after their natural instincts, 
but after the impulses of a divine life. The sacrifice of 
Christ is, therefore, a natural necessity, both on the part 
of God and on the part of man. On the part of God, 
to reveal His essential nature, which is love, and which 



140 LIVING QUESTIONS 

could be revealed in no other way ; and on the part of 
man to counteract his earthly nature, which is selfishness, 
and which nothing in earth or in heaven except love can 
overcome. 

The lecturer insists that the rules of evidence in this 
case should be the same as those applied to other writers. 
To this all Protestant scholars agree. But how does he 
apply his own rules? If he does not apply them in this 
case directly contrary to his own principles, I do not 
understand him. Take the case of the inscription upon 
the cross, which he himself brings forward. The charge 
upon which the sentence was passed was placed upon the 
cross, according to the usage of the age, and the different 
tongues in which it was written was likewise according 
to usage ; and a very proper usage, where a portion of 
the people could only read one of the languages, and 
another a different one. But while the judge seems to 
allow the rational argument, that if the inscriptions had 
been the same in each case it would have been evidence 
of collusion or compilation, he insists that the difference 
impeaches the veracity of the sacred writers. Now, I 
submit it to the common sense of this audience. Is 
there any real difference in these inscriptions ? One is 
" King of the Jews ;" the other, " This is the King of the 
Jews ;" the other, " Jesus of Nazareth, King of Jews." 
The charge upon which he was sentenced to crucifixion 



OF THE AGE. 141 

was King of the Jews — "simply that and nothing 
more." Does giving his birthplace, or prefixing the 
words " This is," alter the import of the sentence in any 
sense whatever ? And when we suppose, what is prob- 
ably true, that the three different languages were written 
by three different persons, it is reasonable to think that 
the three different forms of inscription were on the cross. 
Suppose one should say, Judge Booth delivered an able 
address before the philosophical society ; another, Hon. 
Henry Booth delivered, etc. ; another, Judge Henry 
Booth, of Chicago, delivered, etc., any man that would 
affirm that the veracity of these men was suspicious be- 
cause they attached different adjuncts to the judge's name 
would do what the judge has done. 

In presenting this as one of his strong points the 
lecturer seems to me to have forgotten his usual discrim- 
ination. If each inscription had been reported in the 
same words, it would have been evidence of compilation 
— one writer copying from another. As it stands, it is a 
striking evidence of the truth of the gospel histories. 
Besides, the learned judge violates the law of evidence 
which he recognizes in his own court. Greenleaf is, I 
suppose, one of the best authorities on evidence used by 
the profession, and Greenleaf adduces this very case of 
the immaterial variations in the evangelists as a case 
showing the reliableness of testimony where there are 



142 LIVING QUESTIONS 

slight differences in regard to immaterial things, while 
there is substantial agreement in regard to the essential 
point. (I notice that a member of the Chicago bar, in a 
brief review, refers to this fact.) 

In speaking of what writers generally call inspiration, 
or the Divine guidance of the New Testament writers, 
the judge, for some reason, uses the word infallibility, 
and says that " the sacred writers nowhere make any such 
claim for themselves." This is simply a mistake. These 
writers recorded the promise of inspiration as applied to 
themselves. Jesus said to them (John xvi, 33, 14), 
" When the Holy Spirit is come He will guide you into 
all truth." If that does not mean inspiration (or infalli- 
bility if you please) in regard to all spiritual truth, I do 
not see how such a doctrine could be stated. It is stated 
further in John xiv, 26 : u The Comforter shall teach 
you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance 
whatsoever I have said unto you." Certainly there can 
be nothing more explicit than that. They were to be 
taught all things, after Christ had ascended, by the Holy 
Spirit, who would bring " back to their remembrance all 
things that Christ had said unto them." 

Paul, who is referred to in the lecture as a witness 
with the evangelists, says (1 Cor.ii, 13). "Which things 
also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom 
teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing 



OF THE AGE. 143 

spiritual things with spiritual." If this does not mean that 
in regard to spiritual things the New Testament writers 
were inspired, then words have no meaning. Christian 
men differ in regard to the question whether anything 
more than providential guidance was granted in regard 
to ordinary things ; but all evangelical Christians agree 
that in regard to spiritual truth the sacred writers had 
Divine guidance. 

As a reference to inspiration is frequently made in the 
lecture, we will look a moment at the subject from a 
scientific point of view. I believe that the Bible, in its 
revelation of God and duty, is a book scientifically 
adapted to the human mind. If there are laws of mind, 
— an organic mental constitution, — then truth must, in 
the nature of the case, be adapted to that constitution in 
definite forms, or it would fail to produce any definite 
effect. If God designed to elevate and purify the human 
mind by truth, He would reveal the truth specifically 
adapted to produce the effect. The image and super- 
scription must be put in the die before it is possible to 
impress it upon the metal. It was necessary, therefore, 
that the sacred writers should be inspired with definite 
truth, if God designed, through them,* to make definite 
impressions upon the minds of others, not in word, but 
in idea ; not in secular things, only so far as they had 
spiritual relations, but in the essential sanctifying truths 



144 LIVING QUESTIONS 

of the gospel. In accordance with this, Christ prayed, 
" Sanctify them through the truth — Thy word is truth." 
Scientists must either believe that God does not desire to 
elevate the human mind, or they must believe in inspira- 
tion, because it is a principle of science that there must 
be definite instrumentalities in order to produce definite 
results. 

"We come now to the difficulty which is supposed to 
exist in harmonizing the statements of the evangelists. 
This discussion is not a new one. The subject has been 
studied diligently by men of the best endowments, both 
skeptical and believing. There have been those con- 
firmed in skepticism who have been led to faith in Christ 
as a risen Redeemer by the study of the resurrection, as 
given in the evangelists. The eminent and acute skeptic 
Thos. West, of London, was one of these. Judge Booth 
studies the same narratives and comes to a different con- 
clusion. The judge introduces some new matter into the 
discussion. I will introduce some on the other side. 
Others will judge. 

The first difficulty suggested in regard to Matthew's 
narrative is that "Jesus directs His disciples to go into 
Galilee, and that. He would meet them there, and prom- 
ises to meet them nowhere else." I think this appointed 
meeting in Galilee is one of the most striking evidences 
of the truth of Scripture. It was a remarkable incident 



OF THE AGE. 145 

in the history of Christ as a risen Redeemer. It was 
evidently prominent in His mind. It was about the 
only personal event to occur after his resurrection that 
He stated in plain words before His death. He said, in 
Mark xiv, 28, "After I am risen, I will go before you 
into Galilee." This was a plain prophecy of the resur- 
rection, and a statement before the crucifixion of an early 
meeting with the disciples after He should rise from the 
dead. It implies that both Jesus and the disciples, im- 
mediately after the resurrection, went into Galilee. 

There are in the nature of the case valid reasons why 
this public meeting should have been held — why it should 
be in Galilee, and why Matthew should give the narra- 
tive of it. And the fact that there are such reasons in 
the nature of the case, although they have been over- 
looked, adds confirmation, even at this late day, to the 
gospel statement. 

Jesus came as a teacher not of the Jews only, but also 
of the Gentiles. Now, Galilee was the only province in 
Judea in which the Jewish and Gentile populations were 
united. Although a Jewish district, it was surrounded 
and inhabited in part by Gentile peoples ; so that it was 
the best place on the earth for Christ to come in contact 
with the two great divisions of mankind, as then relig- 
iously classified, and to both of which he came to minister. 

Besides the disciples themselves, the women of whom 
g 13 



146 LIVING QUESTIONS 

Matthew speaks, and the great body of converts to the 
faith, were in this little province of Galilee. These 
Christ had principally taught, — there they had heard of 
His death, but had not witnessed His resurrection. 

Matthew was likewise of Galilee, — an official and in- 
fluential resident of the province. John, although of 
Galilee, had resided in Jerusalem, and Mark and Luke 
did not belong to the province. Matthew speaks of the 
women of Galilee in connection with the resurrection, 
and does not mention others, for the simple reason that 
the people of Galilee were acquainted with these women, 
and probably not with the others. Hence there were 
the best reasons why this narrative should be given by 
Matthew and by him alone. 

After saying that this account, given by Matthew, ap- 
parently rests solely upon what had been told him by 
the two Marys, the lecturer, lawyer-like, endeavors to 
impeach the testimony of one of the women on the 
ground of bad character. He says, "»Who are these 
women ? We are told of Mary Magdalene that she was 
one out of whom Jesus had cast seven devils, whatever 
that may mean. We are justified, perhaps, in con- 
cluding that she was a somewhat eccentric and aban- 
doned character."* The lecturer, or any one else, is 

* Judge Booth in bis reply disclaims the use of the word "aban- 
doned." 



OF THE AGE. 147 

not justified in such a conclusion. All the evidence in 
the case is against it. There are only two passages that 
speak of this matter. One is that of Mark, which the 
judge has cited, and which is noticed as spurious by the 
best critics. Luke, alone, who was a physician, gives 
the circumstances and the associates of this woman. He 
says (viii, 1-3), "And certain women, which had been 
healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Mag- 
dalene, out of whom went seven devils, and Joanna, the 
wife of Chuza, Herod's steward, and Susanna, and 
many others, which ministered unto Him of their sub- 
stance." Here is the narrative and the only one which 
gives us the character of Mary of Magdala, and states 
that her malady, whatever it was, was removed by a 
process of healing. Matthew likewise tells us (iv, 24) 
that evil spirits were cured by healing, as other diseases 
of the body and mind. As a physician, using the 
technical language of the time, Luke ought to know. 
Delirium tremens and some nervous affections of our 
own time produce the same symptoms as those men- 
tioned in the New Testament. They are generally asso- 
ciated with evil spirits. They can be accounted for by 
no known laws of mind. If they are not demoniacal, 
we wait for a better solution. There is not the slightest 
evidence that Mary of Magdala was unchaste. Her 
name is derived from the town of Magdala in Galilee, 



148 LIVING QUESTIONS 

of which place she was no doubt a resident. Her asso- 
ciates at the time she was healed are spoken of as among 
the most honorable in the province. Joanna was the 
wife of King Herod's steward. And both are referred 
to as women of means, who aided the cause of Christ by 
their substance. The accusation is unfounded. 

But the strongest point which the judge makes in this 
whole address, and one which he seems to think deci- 
sive, is in this passage: "Then the eleven went away 
into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed 
them; and when they saw' Him they worshipped Him; 
but some doubted." The lecturer puts these last words 
in italics to attract attention; I do likewise. The lec- 
turer assumes that this phrase alludes to some of the 
eleven disciples. This seems ■ to me utterly unreasona- 
ble in view of the other statements made in regard to 
them. It is said of all the disciples that when they met 
Him they worshipped Him. To couple with this act of 
worship (which a scene so preternatural and spiritual 
was psychologically adapted to produce) the statement 
that some of them doubted, and both statements written ■ 
by one man, seems to me entirely out of reason. But 
if we take the object of the meeting into account, and 
the fact stated by Paul (which there is every reason to 
believe occurred at this time), that five hundred of the 
disciples in this district had been collected by public 



OF THE AGE. 149 

notice of time and place — then the account becomes con- 
gruous and assuring. The statement, then, is probable 
in itself that some of the five hundred witnesses of such 
an event for the first time would doubt. With this ex- 
position, the statement of Paul receives confirmation, 
and the object of this meeting in Galilee is clearly un- 
derstood. That object was to give the great commission 
to His disciples in the beginning of their ministry, and 
to confirm the faith of the great body of brethren in 
Galilee, who had not witnessed the events which the 
disciples had witnessed in Jerusalem. Such an exposi- 
tion connects this meeting in Galilee rationally, logi- 
cally, and chronologically with other facts stated by the 
evangelists. The strong point, therefore, of the lecture 
that if some of the disciples doubted, we may doubt, 
falls to the ground. When the premise is corrected the 
conclusion is a non sequitur. 

But the lecturer passes on, and endeavors to discredit 
Matthew by a passage in Mark, which the best critics 
pronounce to be spurious and not a part of Mark's gos- 
pel (xvi, 9-20). It ought not perhaps to be expected 
that a gentleman burdened with legal labor would have 
time to examine the foundation of all his statements. 
But this use of a spurious passage renders the efforts of 
the lecturer to discredit Matthew totally abortive. An 
argument founded on a spurious passage is a spurious 

13* 



150 LIVING QUESTIONS 

argument, and even if the passage is considered no more 
than doubtful, the argument is doubtful. 

It ought to be added that the main difficulty in har- 
monizing the interviews in the garden has arisen from 
this interpolated passage in Mark. The statement that 
Christ appeared first to Mary is in this passage, and the 
statement which the judge chooses to quote concerning 
Mary of Magdala is here likewise. 

[It is proper to say just here that a gentleman writing 
on this subject over the signature of "X. Y. Z." — who 
presents himself as a scholar — has made some grave mis- 
takes in criticising two important passages (Mark xvi, 
9, 20, and Matt, xxvi, 19). His criticisms of the Greek 
MSS. are erroneous — unsustained by the best authorities, 
and in the last case contrary to all accepted authority.] 

The lecturer, in view of his own argument, then asks 
how the meeting in Galilee could take place if Christ 
had already accomplished His ascension? This question 
cannot be answered. I think the judge is the first in- 
quirer that ever dreamed that Jesur had accomplished 
His ascension before the meeting in Galilee. If assump- 
tions of that kind are made, one risen from the grave 
could not answer the question ! 

It may be profitable to some persons to state that 
some distinguished societies have believed in the bodily 
ascension of living persons, although they doubted about 



OF THE AGE. 151 

the ascension of Jesus. In the proceedings of the 
French Academy, perhaps the most learned body of 
philosophers in the world, a committee was appointed, 
with the celebrated M. Arago at its head, to report on 
the case of Angelique Cottin, who was supposed to do 
miracles by some sort of magnetic power. They re- 
ported that they saw her ascend bodily from the floor, 
and read sealed letters without the use of the senses — 
but some doubted. 

We might close here, as the centre of the whole diffi- 
culty is removed by the removal of the false passage in 
Mark, but there are other allegations against Christian- 
ity, not connected with the subject of the resurrection, 
which need notice. The lecturer, misled, I presume, by 
the interpretations of churches which seek to render the 
superstitions of the dark ages infallible in our time, mis- 
interprets a passage reported by John, in which Christ, 
in speaking to the apostles of their mission in the world, 
says, il Whosoever's sins ye remit they are remitted unto 
them, and whosoever's sins ye retain they are retained." 
This passage is spoken of as a sort of priestly domina- 
tion and error. The allegation is true, but not of Pro- 
testant churches. The true import of the passage can 
be seen by looking into the Harmony, — which the lec- 
turer, I fear, has not done, — in regard to the passage. 
Luke gives the sense of the same communication much 



152 LIVING QUESTIONS 

more fully than John. Luke says, "He said unto 
them, thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to 
suffer and to rise from the dead, and that repentance 
and remission of sins should be preached in His name 
among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem." What 
John says, therefore, about remitting and retaining sins, 
and what Matthew says about giving Peter and the other 
apostles "the keys of the kingdom of heaven/' consisted 
in the fact that the apostles had a divine commission to 
preach repentance and remission of sin in the world. 
The truth that they preached was the key that opened 
the kingdom of God on earth, to those who received it, 
and closed it to those who did not. This is the apostolic 
interpretation of retaining and pardoning sin. We 
ought not to wonder that any church, Greek or Catho- 
lic, that propagates a corrupt, if not a blasphemous 
doctrine, on this subject, and makes merchandise of it, 
should have a deadly hatred to the Bible without note 
or comment. 

We will not follow the lecture in its discussion of the 
case of Paul. Some able writers have received his testi- 
mony alone as conclusive in regard to the death and 
resurrection of Christ. Lord Littletou, an English 
skeptic, who studied the subject of Paul's conversion, 
was himself converted to the faith, and has written one 
of the ablest treatises in the language on the subject. 



OF THE AGE. 153 

Judge Booth has studied the same subject, and has given 
us an able treatise on the other side. I will merely give 
the main point in the case with a remark or two. The 
Acts of the Apostles and the letter of Paul, which give 
the resurrection in different forms with no material va- 
riation, are accepted as genuine by all scholars. Paul 
was transformed from a most malignant and cruel per- 
secutor to a humble, pure, and self-sacrificing Christian. 
He had been connected with Christianity from within 
four or five years of its birth, if not earlier. If his con- 
version occurred in the manner stated, the resurrection 
of Christ from the dead is established. The difficulty, 
therefore, with skeptics has been to accept the epistles of 
Paul as genuine, and yet account for his transformation 
" from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to 
God," on some other rational principle. The usual 
theory of doubt is that Paul was overtaken by a thun- 
der-storm or smitten by sunstroke on his way to Damas- 
cus, and that this produced a hallucination that led him 
to imagine that words were spoken to him, and likewise 
to arrest his career as a persecutor. But Paul was not 
converted on his way to Damascus. Men are not con- 
verted by miracles. Like other men his attention was 
arrested, and after a season of prayer and inquiry, he 
was converted by the truth preached to him many days 
afterward, when his blinded eyes were opened. The 

G* 



154 LIVING QUESTIONS 

hallucination theory, therefore, is weak at this point. 
But suppose hallucination caused by sunstroke upon an 
excited mind to have been the natural cause. Who ever 
heard' of hallucination induced by such a cause changing 
a man's moral nature? Doubters have not only to 
imagine a cause, but when this is done, it is not adapted 
to produce the effect. 

In the closing portion of the lecture some questions 
and inferences are given which are adapted to do evil. 
These passages, most of which have not been noticed by 
reviewers, are the main points in this lecture, more diffi- 
cult, and calculated to do much more evil to the inter- 
ests of truth, than the discussion concerning the Har- 
mon} 7 . It is asked, "Suppose four persons, the most 
intelligent, the most conscientious, and the most vera- 
cious we have ever known, were to testify under oath, 
as eye and ear witnesses, to events equally wonderful, as 
having occurred during the present generation, yet dif- 
fering so materially and irreconcilably in their statement, 
could we possibly believe them?" This proposition is 
vitiated by begging the question at issue, that the state- 
ments are irreconcilable; but the main inquiry is full of 
force on the side of unbelief. There are rational princi- 
ples, however, which abate the force of the appeal. 

There is a law of development in the moral world as 
well as the physical. Judge Booth no doubt believes in 



OF THE AGE. 155 

this law, yet he has set it at naught in this case. By it 
we believe things in the past that could not be inferred 
from the present. Suppose, for instance, that men had 
been told one hundred years ago — suppose the Puritan 
fathers had been told — that such creatures once filled the 
earth as those which existed in the Permian period of 
geology — when no animals now existing had being — 
but lizard-like creatures filled the earth, the ocean, and 
the air — would any one have believed? Probably not 
one. It would have been contrary to all their knowl- 
edge and experience ; yet it is true, and falls legitimately 
under the law of progressive development from lower 
to higher forms and faculties. Not recognizing this law 
in progressive revelation, well-meaning men make skep- 
tics of their intelligent hearers by preaching the Old 
Testament as a part of the religion of our day. This is 
contrary to common sense, to science, and to the Bible 
itself. The Old Testament is the alphabet; the New is 
the perfect development out of a system that in our time 
would be inadequate and immoral. All scholars agree 
that Moses teaches no future life. He enforced the law 
of nature — do to others as they do to you. His system 
was entirely secular. Life and immortality are brought 
to light in the gospel, and in that age immortality could 
be proved in no other way but by a resurrection from 
the dead. 



156 LIVING QUESTIONS 

At this point the objection will be interposed that the 
resurrection is claimed to be miraculous, and the cele- 
brated argument of Hume is recited — a miracle reverses 
natural laws, but natural laws are immutable; therefore 
no evidence can prove a miracle. This argument, al- 
though it is fallacious in assuming that miracles reverse 
natural laws, is stronger than most of the answers that 
theologians have made to it. John Stuart Mill, the 
prince of modern skepticism, has made the best reply to 
Hume. He says, "Hume's argument is good with the 
atheist, but not with those who believe in God." To a 
man who believes that God works over and by the laws 
of nature, the argument is nonsense. Any one can 
counteract the laws of nature, even the great law of 
gravity. He can take a magnet and cause a needle to 
rise from the floor where gravity holds it. He can set 
up a lightning-rod and control the natural law of elec- 
tricity. Cannot God do as much? Can He not control 
a law by some secret power in the law itself, or in some 
other law not yet perceived by us? As Mr. Mill af- 
firms, there is nothing incredible in this to those who 
believe in God. And this is precisely the ground upon 
which both Jesus and Paul place the doctrine of the res- 
urrection. "Why should it be thought a thing incred- 
ible with you," said Paul to Agrippa, "that God should 
raise the dead?" And Jesus said to the skeptical Sad- 



OF THE AGE. 157 

ducees, "Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the 
power of God." That is the point. Besides, when all 
men believed in miracles, the true religion could not be 
introduced without a miracle. 

But let us return to the statement that the same facts 
reported in our time would not be credited. It has been 
noticed that the supposition of such an occurrence in our 
time is unphilosophical. The resurrection of Christ was 
the completion and fruition of a long period of prepara- 
tion. It was the burden of prophecy and preceding dis- 
pensations for two thousand years. Both Jesus and His 
disciples understood and affirmed this, as the churches 
always have done. The judge propounds the question, 
as though Christians believe that an apple is produced 
without a tree to bear it. Supply the tree and the cul- 
tivation, and the solution is easy. 

Suppose we state a case that is relevant, and comes 
nearer home. Suppose four or five credible citizens of 
Chicago had affirmed in different language, five years 
ago, that one man could read the thoughts of another, 
and tell where articles were that had been secreted by 
those present. Would not this learned society and peo- 
ple generally have given it as their opinion that there 
was imposture or delusion in the case ? And yet the at- 
taches of our daily papers were invited to witness such 
a miracle, and they reported that the miracle had been 

14 



158 LIVING QUESTIONS 

wrought. They told the story in different words, but 
none doubted. The fact was contrary to known laws, 
and to all experience, but they were eye-witnesses, and 
could not doubt. While men believe in mercenary mir- 
acles wrought contrary to known law and all experience, 
it would indicate a disposition in favor of the good in 
the same men if they would believe in miracles of mercy. 
The lecturer is skilful in introducing passages with 
which doubting minds have most difficulty, and with 
which his reviewers do not care to meddle. He refers 
several times to the doctrine of demons, and selects the 
cases that produce doubt, if not derision, in some minds. 
I shall notice one of these. The Greek word translated 
devils in our New Testament never 'means devil in the 
original. In the time of Christ it meant the spirits of 
the wicked dead. These were supposed to seek entrance 
into the human mind (especially the minds of those 
affected by some disease) and exert their agency through 
the faculties of the possessed persons. When the mind 
is in an abnormal state, it was believed then, as it is now 
by many persons, that others' spirits could act upon the 
bodies of such persons by controlling their minds. The 
fact that one mind can control another in certain condi- 
tions, called mesmerism, is believed by Dr. Carpenter 
and other eminent physiologists. There is often impos- 
ture in the case, but such facts are witnessed every day. 



OF THE AGE. 159 

Now, if one mind can get possession of another so as to 
control it, that is the doctrine of the New Testament. 
Only the New Testament assumes that good spirits are 
at rest, while the spirits of the selfish dead are miserable, 
and seek by lies and malignant influence to exert their 
power upon the minds and bodies of the living. The 
New Testament likewise affirms that curing the bodily 
or mental malady removed the evil influence, just as in 
modern times a restoration of health in many cases de- 
stroys the power of the mesmerizer over his subject, and 
cures the evil spirits in the case of delirium tremens. 

Now, it is a very easy inference that if a spirit in the 
flesh can possess for a time and control another, a dis- 
embodied spirit can do as much. As members of a phil- 
osophical society, it seems to me if we assent to the one 
we ought to be able to give a good reason for dissenting 
from the other. Some one may wish to ask, Do you 
believe in demons in our time? It was prophesied that 
Christ would abate the power of evil spirits in the world, 
and the New Testament informs us that He did so. 
Miracles and possessions were to cease, and charity, which 
is love produced by faith in Christ's sacrifice, was to 
become the central power in Christian development. 

The case of the destruction of the swine through the 
influence of these demoniacs is supposed to be so strange 
an occurrence as to be incredible, and we are asked, 



160 LIVING QUESTIONS 

Suppose the sea to be some western water in our time, 
would such a statement as that made by the evangelists 
be believed? Now, in the course of Providence, a sim- 
ilar occurrence has actually taken place recently in Cali- 
fornia. The newspapers inform us that a large herd of 
cattle grazing upon a hill-side, under the care of a herds- 
man, was so startled in some unaccountable way by a 
call or whistle of their keeper, that they ran together 
furiously over a precipice, and were mostly dashed to 
pieces. We may suppose what we choose in regard to 
the keeper and the cause of this fury. The facts are 
similar. Perhaps in one case the cause is revealed, in 
the other it is not. 

I saw in this city, twenty-five years ago, a number of 
gentlemen taken from a large audience upon a platform 
in the old city hall. They were said to be mesmerized. 
The operator declared he saw them all for the first time. 
He made them move in all sorts of ways and believe all 
sorts of silly things. Finally he made them think that 
the house was on fire and all were in danger. Fright- 
ened by what seemed to them real, one gentleman, a 
merchant on Lake Street, jumped down from the plat- 
form and so injured himself that he walked with a crip- 
pled gait on the street the next day. There may be 
gentlemen in this audience that were present that even- 
ing, — if so, please signify the fact. 



OF THE AGE. 161 

Now, a further and inexplicable mystery of this thing 
is that the practitioner upon the minds of these men 
did not himself believe what he made them believe. 
That which was a lie to him was real to them. His 
case is just as difficult of solution as the destruction of 
the swine. God permits evil men to destroy property 
continually. Because the case is revealed it does not 
alter the principle. But we will state an interpretation 
which I fear will not be of so much value to many as it 
ought to be. There are but two miracles of our Lord 
that are not beneficent, — this one, and the blighting of 
the barren fig-tree. We are taught that Christ always 
spake in parables : that is, His teaching has usually a 
symbolic sense ; and this was true undoubtedly of many 
of His acts, besides that which instituted the Eucharist. 
The fig-tree with leaves, but without fruit, was symbolic 
of the Jewish people, and the curse or blight a symbol 
of their approaching doom. As a historical fact they 
were about to be destroyed as a nation, "root and 
branch," and there could have been no more striking 
prophecy of their fate than the blight of this fruitless 
tree. So this case of the destruction of the swine is a fit 
illustration of a principle that has worked in the moral 
history of the world from the beginning. That is, when 
God by His influence and agents casts the evil out of 
some minds, it is cast into others; to speak plainly, 

14* 



162 LIVING QUESTIONS 

when the devil is cast out of some people in a revival of 
religion, he is cast into others, generally into the lowest 
and lewdest of the same community. If Moody and 
Sankey come to this city, instead of eloquent and inter- 
esting essays about religion, we shall have the " death 
in sin" and " life in Christ" preached directly to the 
souls of the people. And instead of artistic music made 
to the people on the organ, we shall have spiritual 
songs, the words of which will "teach and admonish 
and make melody in the heart, unto God." The evil 
will depart from some who will be clothed in their 
right minds, but on the other hand bitterness, rage, and 
profanity will be produced in the atheist, the impenitent 
saloon-keeper, and in vicious minds generally. 

I do not say this is an infallible interpretation, I say 
it is a construction that accords with history and human 
experience. When electricity leaves a positive body it 
seeks a negative, sometimes to possess and sometimes to 
destroy. 

In conclusion, let me say for myself, that I think the 
arguments drawn from harmonies and historical forms of 
evidence are not of very great importance in regard to 
vital Christianity. If there were nothing better than 
Chalmers and the harmonists, I should still be a skep- 
tic. The facts with which the external evidence deals 
are the basis of faith ; yet if there were no conscious 



OF THE AGE. 163 

experimental evidence, Christianity would not be a self- 
evidencing religion. But it is not possible for a man to 
doubt the testimony of his own consciousness. He may 
reason in regard to the cause of his experience, but the 
experience itself he cannot doubt. To each individual 
it is personally conclusive. 

Now, the basis of every Christian experience is faith in 
the example and sacrifice of Christ. The vital question 
then is, Can we be sure of the truth of these facts ? Of 
this much we are sure- — we have the evidence of cause and 
effect that we believe what was believed by Peter, Paul, 
John, and all the Christians of the apostolic age. Take 
the facts of Christ's life, death, and resurrection as stated 
in the New Testament — then we know the effect which 
faith in these facts produced upon Paul and other be- 
lievers of his time. Then the decisive question is, Are 
the effects produced by faith now the same as were pro- 
duced in Peter, John, and all the first believers ? Does 
the faith in Christ now work by love to God in Christ ? 
Does it induce peace in the soul? Does it produce 
labor for the spiritual good of men, as it did in them ? 
If it does, then we have the same truth that they be- 
lieved, just as certainly as the same cause produces the 
same effect. We have the testimony of consciousness, 
which is infallible to each individual, and we have the 
evidence of cause and effect, that the truth which pro- 



164 LIVING QUESTIONS 

duces this experience is the same truth that was believed 
by the immediate disciples of Christ. 

This is enough. We know that the truth which Paul 
believed made him a new creature. It transformed the 
spirit of his mind, leading him to love God in Christ, 
and deny himself for the good of men. The natural 
malady of sin is healed. If a physician compounds a 
prescription, and requires that it be taken daily, and if 
one, like the women of Phoenicia, had tried all other 
remedies and failed, but should take the offered medi- 
cine, as prescribed, and be healed, you could not shake 
that person's confidence either in the skill of the phy- 
sician or the sovereign efficacy of the medicine. Such 
an one like the restored man in the Gospel could 
kill all the objections by the conscious statement, 
" Whereas I was blind now I see." Since Christ died 
and rose again, no human being ever relied on the 
simple faith of the Gospel, that was not enlightened 
and purified thereby. This is enough. " He that 
believeth hath the witness in himself, and he that be- 
lieveth not hath made God a liar, because he believeth 
not the record that God gave of His Son." The wit- 
ness is to the record which God gives of His son, — not 
the record of unessential things that do not affect spirit- 
ual truth. Incidental and accidental variations and dis- 
crepancies do exist ; but " the Holy Spirit is witness for 



OF THE AGE. 165 

us," and the Holy Spirit witnesses only to holy things. 
And He bears this witness now in the minds of be- 
lievers, as He did in the time of Paul. The difference 
is the apostles had plenary and special inspirations to 
accomplish a special, fundamental mission. Jesus told 
them He had called and ordained them "to go forth 
and bear fruit, and their fruit should remain," — as it 
does remain in church organizations, and the gospels 
and epistles which they have left us. The Christian's 
evidence is internal ; it enables him to verify the record, 
as we have shown, by his own consciousness. " He that 
is spiritual judgeth all things, yet is he judged of no 
man." He "compares spiritual things with spiritual, 
and without this spiritual insight the scriptures cannot 
be rightly understood," "because," as we are taught, 
" they are spiritually discerned." William Penn af- 
firmed this truth when he said, " The infallible evidence 
is the spirit of Christ within, agreeing with the external 
word without." This I believe. Hence the apostle 
says, " No man can call Jesus the Christ but by the 
Holy Ghost." Men may speculate as the learned Ke- 
nan and others concerning Christ's history and nature 
(as some of the most depraved minds living are now 
doing), but opinion is not faith. 

I am not surprised then that many intelligent men in 
our time are becoming skeptical. If they accept much 



166 LIVING QUESTIONS 

of the Christianity that they see about them as an expo- 
nent of the Gospel, it is not certainly adapted to promote 
faith. 

I am not surprised that our city papers speak de- 
risively of our holy religion; it is the protest of the 
reason — sometimes a vicious reason, I fear — against 
fashion instead of faith. 

I am not surprised that respectable masons associate 
themselves and erect forms of worship where Christ is 
casfc out. I accept many views of the Friends, but do 
not agree with a recent writer, who thinks that the mass 
of professors of our time are precisely the same as the 
scribes, Pharisees, and hypocrites whom the Saviour de- 
nounced. I know that this is not true of the majority 
of Christians. The best men and women in this land 
are in the churches. Yet if scribes mean those who 
manufacture preaching machines for churches ; Phari- 
sees, those who "teach for doctrines the commandments 
of men," and hypocrites, those who have a " form of 
godliness without the power thereof," I fear that the 
statement has some application to myself and others. 

But the elect in the Church and out of it will be 
saved. God will interpose, as He always has done, by 
raising up men from the people. So He raised up the 
Puritans, the Wesleys, Charles G. Finney, and others 
of their time. So Young Men's Christian Associations. 



OF THE AGE. 167 

Men who will seek to save souls from death, in the 
church and out of it. Christ reigns. He has founded 
His Church on the truth proclaimed by the apostles, 
and the " gates of hell shall never prevail against it." 



168 LIVING QUESTIONS 



CHAPTEE YI. 

atheism: its principles, and the form of its 
objections to the christian religion. 

Secularism is the name chosen by those in England 
and America who believe in no God and in no Divine 
revelation. They affirm that the Christian religion is 
hostile to human good, and hence engage in active efforts 
to destroy its influence. They speak of Nature or the 
laws of Xature as causing and ruling or controlling all 
things in the realms of mind and matter. Some of them 
think there may be a future life, others that there is no 
life but the present ; and all believe that the interests of 
the present time are the only interests about which men 
should concern themselves. 

The Secularists are organized into associations, and 
some of their prominent men, as Mr. Bradlaugh in Eng- 
land, and Mr. Underwood in this country, are engaged 
in addressing audiences in support of their views, and 
in opposition to the Christian faith. 

In England the Christian Evidence Society has en- 
gaged influential gentlemen to lecture on the subject of 



OF THE AGE. 169 

Christian evidence and Christian doctrine, and to discuss 
with the Secularists the issues which they make on the 
subject of the existence of God and the truth of Revela- 
tion. In this country, although some lectures have been 
delivered on the subject of Christian evidence by lead- 
ing ministers, nothing has been done by any one who 
seemed to understand well either the views or argu- 
ments of the Atheisms of our time as against Chris- 
tianity. The Secularist writers, if they notice these 
lectures at all, seem to think that the speakers have not 
answered the Atheists, but have answered themselves. 
Lectures on this subject are, as a matter of fact, of little 
or no value if men do not reply to the views of the 
Atheists as the Atheists themselves propound them. 

In the pages which follow, the views and arguments 
of the Secularists are stated by Mr. B. F. Underwood, 
a leading lecturer, and a controversialist of unusual abil- 
ity. A discussion was undertaken with this representa- 
tive man in order that the issues in the controversy might 
be stated by the Secularists themselves, and their argu- 
ment fairly met and examined. 

Subsequently to the public discussions Mr. Under- 
wood issued a pamphlet and sent a copy to the writer, 
in which he defines and argues, in brief, the leading 
points at issue as he understands them. These views 
are examined briefly in the following pages. Added to 
h 15 



170 LIVING QUESTIONS 

this is a notice of some points, as they were presented 
in the discussion, which are not introduced in the pam- 
phlet, and likewise a comparative estimate of the claims 
of Christianity and Atheism, — the whole covering fully 
and fairly the objections of the Secularists to faith in 
God and the Gospel. 

In Mr. Underwood's summary of Christian and Secu- 
larist views he states twenty points of difference between 
the Christian and the Atheist, giving what he under- 
stands to be the Christian view and his rejoinder, con- 
trasting the views of Christians with the views of the 
Atheists, as follows : 

1. The first allegation refers to the existence and 
character of God, and is as follows : " Christianity 
teaches the existence of a God, infinite in presence, 
yet a personal being ; infinite in knowledge, yet a being 
who cogitates, plans, and contrives like man ; infinite in 
power, yet the author of a world full of imperfections ; 
infinite in goodness (as well as power), yet permits mar- 
tyrs to expire amid flames, and patriots and philanthro- 
pists to expire in dungeons ; unchangeable, yet at a 
certain time, after a beginningless state of inactivity, 
arousing from his idleness to make a universe out of 
nothing; is not the cause of evil, yet the creator of 
everything and everybody, save himself; is free from 
infirmities, yet is pleased with some things and displeased 



OF THE AGE. 171 

with others ; is without body, parts, or passions, and yet 
is of the masculine gender." 

On the other hand, the Atheists teach " the self-exist- 
ence, the eternity, and the sufficiency of Nature, and the 
universality and invariability of natural law." 

We will separate the different clauses of this state- 
ment of the Christian teaching concerning God, as Mr. 
U. states it, and notice them briefly in detail, with a 
reference to the Atheistic teaching on the same subject. 

Mr. Underwood's entire list of difficulties might be 
disposed of by saying that he assumes them all as his 
own in his definition of Nature, which he personifies as 
a self-existing and self-sufficient Cause. He says " Na- 
ture acts in accordance with laws/' and that all things — 
"the movements of a zoophite and the thoughts of a 
man — are all and equally subject to invariable law." 
Here is something that acts in accordance with law. Does 
it do this designedly, or are the laws superior to the na- 
ture that acts according to them? All things that Mr. 
U. alleges against God might be alleged against Nature, 
with a thousand-fold more reason, as we shall see. 

Besides, the Atheists hold with Christians that the 
finite cannot comprehend the Infinite. Suggesting diffi- 
culties, therefore, which require the finite to comprehend 
the Infinite is against himself more than against Chris- 
tians, who believe that the Infinite has communicated, 



172 LIVING QUESTIONS 

through a personal humanity that we can comprehend, a 
rational and saving manifestation of God's moral attri- 
butes. But he objects specifically : 

(a) " God is a being infinite in presence, yet a per- 
sonal being." 

Ans. Now, as we have seen, Mr. U. uses language 
applying personality to Nature, while he yet denies the 
personality of Nature. We shall answer to his own 
view, Why should not God be omnipresent and yet a 
personal being? Personality is limited in finite crea- 
tures, of course; but when a man undertakes to measure 
the infinite by the finite he is unreasonable, according to 
his own showing. Besides, Mr. U. is a personal being. 
Did impersonal Nature produce personal beings? Which 
is the most consonant with common sense, a personal, 
rational Cause for a personal being, or an impersonal, 
irrational Cause? The question answers itself, — the 
effect cannot be greater than the cause. The personality 
of God becomes comprehensible in Christ. Man is so 
constituted that he can get an apprehension of person- 
ality only through a personal being. The Scriptures 
teach that " in Christ dwelled the fulness of the God- 
head personally" "No man hath known God at any 
time ; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of 
the Father, he hath declared Him." When a man re- 
jects the revelation of God in Christ it is impossible for 



OF THE AGE. 173 

him to know God. Mr. U.'s perplexity is a striking 
confirmation of this fact. He seems to believe that a 
machine can make itself, — that the first man was a son 
without a father, and an effect without a cause ! 

(b) " Infinite in knowledge, yet cogitates and designs 
like men." How else could any being cogitate and de- 
sign ? Reason must be the same generically in all be- 
ings. Two and two must be four with God as it is with 
men, because the constitution of the universe is mathe- 
matical. Mr. U.'s view is the same as to say because 
finite minds cogitate in regard to finite things, therefore 
there can be no infinite mind. Besides, it is admitted 
by all parties that there is constant change, together with 
progression and adaptation, working to a definite end in 
nature. These imply reason in the Cause. The Secular- 
ists generally believe that cause is irrational, or else they 
ascribe to Nature the attributes that we assign to God. 

(c) " Infinite in power, yet created a world full of 
imperfections." "Why not? They say Nature is infi- 
nite in power ; and yet Nature — their Cause itself — is 
full of imperfections. If God is infinite in power, He 
would create an imperfect world, if it would work out 
a better end than a perfect one. If finite beings had 
been created perfect and infallible, merit in them would 
not have been possible. Nature is in a state of progress, 
as the Secularists rightly believe, from the less to the 

15* 



174 LIVING QUESTIONS 

more perfect. God knew the end from the beginning, 
hence the Divine ideal is accomplished in the progress 
of an imperfect world to a perfect end, while finite be- 
ings, snch as men, have probation and opportunity to 
form and confirm a meritorious character, by resisting 
evil and voluntarily pursuing good; and the Divine 
Father has the pleasure, in regard to the world, that an 
earthly parent would feel if he knew two things cer- 
tainly at the same time, i.e., that his son, although 
imperfect and suffering now, was dropping his imper- 
fections, and in the end would progress to a perfect man. 

(d) "Of infinite goodness, yet permits martyrs to 
expire in the flames." 

Ans. It would not be just or good in God to prevent 
martyrs from expiring in the flames, when they pre- 
ferred death rather than perjury or some other sin against 
truth. If there be a future life, martyrdom is better 
than apostasy. The awards of the future vindicate God, 
and bless those who labor and suffer for truth in this 
life. This is clear light. But how dreadful must be 
the darkness of the Atheist's soul ! Nature produces the 
martyrdoms, and instead of reward in a better life strikes 
the martyr with eternal death ! 

(e) " Is not the cause of evil, yet is the creator of 
everything good and evil but himself." 

Ans. Intelligent beings, angels and men, were created 



OF THE AGE. 175 

free that each might be the creator of his own character. 
This is the only way character can be formed. It is the 
way character is formed now. Yielding to temptation 
men fall, resisting evil they rise. All moral evil and 
moral good in the world is a necessary incident of free 
will. God created the free agent, — the moral evil is the 
creation of moral beings thus endowed. Men must 
either be as the brutes, without knowledge and free will, 
which makes sin possible, or free and responsible for 
their actions. If the Atheists deny the Christian doc- 
trine on this subject their arguments are against both the 
facts and the reason in the case, — against nature as well 
as against God. 

(f ) " That God is an unchangeable being, who after 
long inactivity aroused from his idleness and created the 
world." 

Ans. This clause is an unfair statement of the Chris- 
tian faith. The finite can comprehend the infinite only 
so far as the infinite is revealed in Nature and in Christ. 
The Bible states that the earth had a beginning in form 
and movement. This is affirmed likewise by science. 
However men differ in regard to the process of progress, 
they agree with the Bible that there was a beginning and 
a progress, both in the physical and the organic worlds. 
Of things previous to that beginning the Bible does not 
speak, except to say that " God made the stars also." 



176 LIVING QUESTIONS 

(g) "Free from infirmities, yet pleased with some 
things and displeased with others." 

Ans. There is, as a matter of fact, moral good and 
evil in existence, originating in intelligent free-will. 
Does Mr. U. affirm that God ought to look upon moral 
good and evil as alike in character ? He does not do 
this himself. If he did he would be a moral monster, 
and yet he objects to the Christian faith that God puts a 
difference between the good and the bad. God's un- 
changeableness consists in the eternal justice of his na- 
ture, which approves the good and disapproves the evil. 
All mind has a polar constitution. No being can approve 
the good without disapproving the bad. 

(h) u Is without body, parts, or passions, yet is of 
the masculine gender." 

Ans. God in Christ is personal and masculine. But 
" in heaven there is neither marrying nor giving in mar- 
riage." Jesus said, " He that doeth the will of God is 
my mother and sister and brother." This certainly 
ought to satisfy an Atheist, who believes that an im- 
personal nature without sex produces persons both of 
the masculine and feminine gender. 

The difficulties which Mr. Underwood suggests in 
regard to the Christian doctrine of God are baseless and 
irrational. He alleges that Christian views are con- 
trary to reason, and yet attributes to an irrational, imper- 



OF THE AGE. 177 

• 

sonal cause, which he calls Nature, the same effects which 
the Christian attributes to an infinite, intelligent First 
Cause. The unreason is evidently on the side of the 
Atheist. The admitted fact that the finite mind cannot 
comprehend the infinite is met by the manifestation of 
God in the personality of Jesus Christ. Thus the be- 
liever "can come unto the Father in Him," while the 
Atheist, according to his own statement, acknowledges 
that he is without God and without hope in the world. 
He says " an unbroken everlasting sleep probably awaits 
us all." Blessed be Christianity, which brings life and 
immortality to light, and saves men from even the ap- 
prehension of the eternal death which Mr. Underwood 
expects for himself and others ! 

Having misstated and misapplied the Christian views 
of God, Mr. Underwood proceeds as follows to state in 
opposition the Christian and the Secularist views on 
other religious subjects : 

2. " The Christian believes in the original perfection 
of everything ; the Atheist believes that in the history 
of the world there has been an evolution from the simple 
to the complex, from the special to the general." 

Arts. This is an erroneous statement of the opinions 
of Christians and a blind statement of his own. The 
Bible states distinctly that good and evil both existed 
before the existence of man, and that it was the preroga- 



178 LIVING QUESTIONS 

tive of superior beings to understand the distinction be- 
tween good and evil. It states that the earth had pro- 
gressed from lower to higher conditions, and the creatures 
on the earth from lower to higher forms and faculties, 
before man existed on the earth. Geology now authen- 
ticates this Scriptural statement. The whole earth was 
not an Eden when man was created. The Scriptures 
look to the future, not to the past, for the perfect. 

The view of the Secularist is that by a law of nature 
higher species have been evolved out of lower ones, from 
the mollusk up to man. If it be true that natural law 
does this without an intelligent Cause, — that by some 
" potency/' inherent in matter itself, progress from the 
less to the more perfect is achieved, then it follows in- 
controvertibly unless the law of progress is stopped, unless 
that potency ceases to exist, nature will, in the end, create 
a God, instead of God creating nature. 

3. " The existence of a devil, a creature made by God, 
and the author of evil that will exist forever." On the 
contrary, Materialism teaches " that good and evil are 
relative terms. All morality is founded upon utility, 
and evolved by the wants and necessities of human 
existence." 

Ans. If the Secularists know that such charges are 
not true they are guilty of deceiving their audiences, 
most of whom take their representations as a true state- 



OF THE AGE. 179 

ment of what Christians believe. I am surprised that 
a gentleman so well informed as Mr. U. should suppose 
that Christians believe in such nonsense. On this sub- 
ject, as upon others, good people may make loose state- 
ments. The Bible doctrine is that angels and men were 
created upright and placed on probation, as all moral na- 
tures must necessarily be, because moral character can be 
formed only by free choice. The fallen angels kept not 
their first estate, and man, under the influence of tempta- 
tion, determined to disobedience. 

Men are still tempted, and they still fall, " after the 
similitude of Adam's transgression." They are led into 
sin by the evil seductions of their fellow-men. That a 
bad spirit in the flesh is permitted to tempt others to sin 
is no different in character, and is as great a difficulty to 
the reason, as the temptation of a bad spirit out of the 
flesh. If the fact is an objection against God, who can 
bring good out of the evil, it is a greater objection 
against Nature. It is easy to raise objections, but the 
fact exists notwithstanding all objections. If there be 
no God, as some have said in their heart, still the facts 
of temptation and sin are both true, and a terrible truth 
to those who believe, as Mr. U. does, that they are 
caused by the same inexorable power. 

Besides, Christians do not generally believe that evil 
will exist forever. Evil spirits have no power unless 



180 LIVING QUESTIONS 

men yield to the temptation. And Satan and the sin 
which he induces, the Scriptures teach, are to be 
destroyed. 

The Secularist view, as stated by Mr. Underwood on 
this point, is inexplicable nonsense. " All morality," 
he says, "is founded on utility, and evolved by the 
wants and necessities of human existence." That moral- 
ity should be evolved is a new phase of evolution 
which Huxley never thought of. And strange, too, 
that it should be evolved by a power called the wants 
and necessities of human existence ! Whence is human 
existence ? And how does this existence happen to have 
wants and necessities ? And how does the cause of the 
evolution come to exist after the evolution? Morality 
must have existed in human nature before want evolved 
it. We thought cause was before an effect, not after. 
Is not Atheism, that so confounds a strong mind, a 
species of treason against human reason ? 

4. He says Christians hold that "man is a fallen 
creature, unable to improve by his own efforts ;" while 
the Atheist maintains " that man's condition, although 
imperfect, is improvable by his own unaided efforts." 

Ans. The Christian doctrine is true, while there is, 
likewise, a modicum of truth in that of the Atheist. As 
a fact of natural history, without exception, no species 
of nature has ever improved itself so as to rise above its 



OF THE AGE. 181 

natural condition, without aid from a higher nature. 

The aid of man is necessary in order to raise animals 

above their wild state. No being can lift itself out of 

the natural condition in which it is" created. Within 

the limits of a natural species there may be, by natural 

agencies, an improvement of wild individuals. So men 

may, when they attain to a settled condition, by the aid 

of written signs, make some intellectual advancement. 

But with such higher intellectual attainment there 

always comes a lower moral condition. For man to rise 

to a higher moral state without the aid of Christ, — a 

higher moral nature than his own, — is just as impossible 

as it is for the wild bison to transform itself into the 

domestic ox. The species is the same, but it requires 

the culture of a higher mind to produce the domestic 

variety, and subjugate it to useful ends. 

The best condition that man has ever attained by his 

own unaided efforts was achieved in the Augustan Age 

of Rome, when Christianity made its advent in the 

world. The highest intellectual achievements were 

made, while at the same time the conscience and the 

heart were more debased than at any previous period of 

the nation's history. The grossest vices known to man 

prevailed in high and low places, even down to the 

bestial vice of sodomy. Paul's letter to the Christians 

at Rome describes accurately the moral turpitude of the 

16 



182 LIVING QUESTIONS 

mass of the people. As they rose intellectually they 
sank morally, until even Gibbon says he regrets to tell 
the story. 

Not only intellect, as in Rome, but Atheism itself, has 
once had ruling power on the earth. In the days of the 
French Revolution, the Commune of Atheists ruled the 
state, and prohibited Divine worship. The result of 
their ascendency was that murder and lust assumed such 
horrid forms that the people were affrighted at the ap- 
palling spectacle, and fled back to the old superstition 
of the Papacy as a refuge from the Reign of Atheism. 

5. " Christians believe that man is saved only by the 
blood and merits of Christ." "Atheists say man should 
look to himself, not to a spectacle of suffering, for sal- 
vation." 

Ans. It is true that those who believe are saved from 
sin by faith in the merit and sacrifice of Christ. That 
sacrifice was a manifestation of love. Love alone can 
beget love, and love to God and man is salvation ; it is 
the fulfilling of the law. Suffering love has more power 
over the human heart than all other powers known to 
the mind of man. If experience and testimony can 
settle anything, this fact is settled. Since the blood of 
Christ was shed on the cross, every soul upon the earth 
that has believed that that sacrifice was made in mercy 
for him has been made better by this faith. We are 



OF THE AGE. 183 

not speaking of creeds or opinions, but of actual faith 
in the fact that " Christ died, the just for the unjust/' 
There has been no exception in any case where there 
was a realizing faith in this fact. This experience occur- 
ring incessantly for eighteen hundred years — and the 
experience increasing — settles this question, if expe- 
rience can settle anything. 

But the Atheist says man should look to himself for 
salvation. Will a man looking to himself cause him 
to love God or love his fellow-men ? Away with such 
absurdity ! 

6. Christians are said to affirm that "belief in the 
Christian system involves moral merit, unbelief sin ;" 
while Atheists hold that " belief and unbelief are in- 
voluntary." 

Ans. The statement should be that belief in Christ 
produces moral merit. It strengthens the conscience 
and purifies the heart. The merit that produces this 
blessing is in Christ. Christians never claim this merit 
for themselves. The character of all men in Christian 
lands is tried by the Gospel, and it is not wrong to say 
that moral merit is indicated by a disposition to believe 
truth that requires us to obey God and do good to men. 

The Secularist holds that man's belief and unbelief 
are involuntary. This is true in part ; but it has always 
been conceded that our desires have something to do 



184 LIVING QUESTIONS 

with our beliefs. Besides, man can in a large measure 
control his attention. He can place himself in circum- 
stances favorable or unfavorable to the reception of 
truth. He can avoid places and persons that would 
lead him to right belief. The state of the heart biasses 
the attention, and attention to one class of facts rather 
than another biasses belief. It is " with the heart man 
believeth unto righteousness." Any man who desires to 
love God and do good to his fellow-men, will from the 
nature of the case be inclined to believe in Christ, be- 
cause Christ is the living impersonation of the great 
vital duty expressed by the words "Love God, and labor 
for the good of men." Those who walk in this path 
necessarily walk with Christ. 

7. The Christian believes that it is man's duty to 
"worship God by prayer and praise;" the Secularist 
"that we should direct our efforts to improve ourselves." 

Ans. What better aid is there to improve ourselves 
than prayer and praise ? The only way that man can 
improve in virtue is to compare himself with a standard 
better than himself. No man can or will make an ef- 
fort to change his position until he sees that his present 
position is a low or a bad one. But his defects he can 
never see or feel until he compares himself with a life 
better than his own. Now, every man who compares 
his motives and life with Christ will see imperfections in 



OF THE AGE. 185 

his moral character, at the same time that he will be 
invited and encouraged to forsake them. Now, worship, 
prayer, induces this comparison, and begets the aspiration 
for a higher life. And praise is the language of the 
heart in view of the truth and mercy which it contem- 
plates. Thus the soul by prayer grows in grace as it 
grows in the knowledge of Jesus Christ. 

The Atheist's dictum, " Don't worship, but improve 
yourself," is just as absurd as the vulgar adage, " Lift 
yourself up by the straps of your own boots." It is the 
same as to advise a man to preserve his health, and at 
the same time forbid the adapted food to do it. 

8. Christians are said to believe " that comparatively 
but a small portion of mankind will be happy in the 
future life;" while the reply of the Atheist is " that man, 
wherever he is, will be fitted to his conditions. An un- 
broken, everlasting sleep probably awaits all, and affords 
no ground of fear." 

Ans. The Christian believes that man in the future 
will be unhappy — as he is now — only so far as he is a sin- 
ner and so long as he is sinful j with the additional evil, 
which sometimes begins in time, of remorse for past 
oifences and neglect of good. Some Christians believe 
that those confirmed in selfishness will be annihilated at 
the judgment, — that the second death is the death of the 
soul. Other Christians believe that man has no eternal 

16* 



136 LIVING QUESTIONS 

life except by faith that unites him with Christ. The 
only statement in which all Christians agree, in regard to 
the future of the impenitent, is that " they will never 
see God/' but be " banished with everlasting destruction 
from the presence of God and the glory of His power." 

9. "That man has received a book-revelation, of 
which, however, but comparatively a small portion of 
the race has ever received information." The Atheist 
replies " that the teachings of reason, and the lessons of 
experience, are the only revelations man has received." 

Ans. Mr. Underwood does not seem to perceive that 
he has answered himself. The teachings of reason and 
the lessons of experience in the past can be preserved in 
no other way than by a written record. This is true 
both in regard to secular and sacred things. The Gospel 
is the highest reason, and the experience of Christians 
in the first ages the holiest experience ; and these, with 
the histories of introductory and less perfect Dispensa- 
tions, could be preserved in no other way than by a writ- 
ten record. Man's earthly condition can be advanced 
only by preserving and accumulating the wisdom of the 
past in written records. Would not God use the same 
natural and necessary medium to preserve and transmit 
the truth necessary for man's moral progress ? To allow 
the one and not the other is to make the less more than 
the greater, which is absurd. All knowledge that is 



OF THE AGE. 187 

communicated by men to men is by gradual and pro- 
gressive advances. Knowledge of the Divine character 
will reach all in due time. Meanwhile, where there is 
no law there is no transgression. 

10. Christians are said to believe " that reason should 
be subordinated to the teachings of the Bible ;" while 
the Atheists say that " the Bible should be tested by the 
same rules of historical and modern criticism that are 
applied to other ancient documents." 

Ans. Christians assent to the requirement that the 
Bible be subjected to the most discriminating criticism ; 
and no book in the world has undergone one-hundredth 
part of the criticism to which the Scriptures have been 
subjected both by friends and opponents. All reason 
asks is a fair criticism ; and that relates almost entirely 
to the envelope which contains the vital truth, rather 
than to the nature and value of the truth itself. The 
histories of the Old Testament may be interpolated or 
modified by transcribers to some extent. Those histo- 
ries relate to previous Dispensations, which were imper- 
fect in themselves, and designed to be introductory to 
the perfect Dispensation of Christ. And it was only as 
introductory, and as adapted to a darker age, that they 
were perfect. The only question is whether the enve- 
lope encloses a truth that reveals God and saves from 
sin. Above and beyond the criticism of the record, 



188 LIVING QUESTIONS 

there is the vital question, Does the truth contained in 
the New Testament accomplish its end ? Does it cure 
men of the propension to sin ? If there was found in a 
volume of the past a proposed remedy for fever, which 
was presented as a cure in all cases, and if every one 
that took the prescription as directed was benefited, and 
those who continued to take it were cured, — and if there 
"was no exception to the fact, — but the same symptoms 
yielded now as they did when the book w r as written, to 
the same remedy, — then the man who denied the efficacy 
of that remedy would be either crazy or criminal. Faith 
in Christ saves from sin. That is the evidence which 
the human soul needs. It is in vain to say some pro- 
fess to take the remedy that are not cured. Persons may 
profess to take a prescription, while they do so irregu- 
larly or partially ; but it is an unfailing truth that those 
who believe with the heart, and discharge the duties required, 
are saved from sin. Criticism about who wrote the book 
and whether the physician healed other diseases would 
be of little value. " Whereas I was blind now I see" 
is the infallible evidence of the truth of Christianity. 

11. " That the acts of the Jews, such as are practised 
now by barbarians only, were commanded by God, and 
were therefore right." The Atheists say that "those 
acts, as of other heathen nations, were the result of their 
undeveloped, uncivilized condition." 



OF THE AGE. 189 

Ans. The wars of the Jews against the Canaanites, the 
Bible says, were permitted, or commanded, as a penalty 
upon a wicked nation for its sins. The same thing oc- 
curs now, — the difference being that in one case the 
Divine will is revealed, in the other it is not. Governor 
Wise and other Southern gentlemen said the war that 
desolated the South was sent by the Almighty as a pen- 
alty for slavery and the evils which it induced. So 
thought men at the North, who believed in Providence. 
The wars of the Jews, then, were the infliction of penalty 
on others, and to some extent on themselves, for sin. 
The wars and sins of David have been alluded to, but it 
has not been stated that David was punished all his later 
life for his cruelties and lust. His sons rebelled and 
were killed, or they killed each other ; and this is said 
to be penalty upon him for his transgression. His child 
died for a like cause, and it is denounced against him 
that while he lived " the sword should not depart from 
his house, because he was a man of blood." David, as 
the promoter of Monotheism, — the worship of the one 
true God, — was the choice of the Divine mind ; but he 
was not even permitted to build a house for the worship 
of God, because of the offences that blotted his record. 
Ministers frequently eulogize David, which in view of 
his good qualities is proper, but when they apologize for 
his sins and cruelties they do wrong, and do injury. But 



190 LIVING QUESTIONS 

I 
the Jews were an undeveloped people. Christianity 

forbids war, and with its prevalence wars will cease. 

12. "That there are mysteries contrary to experience 
and reason which must nevertheless be believed." The 
materialists say they believe " that the universe is full 
of natural mysteries, but none contrary to our reason." 

Ans. If the Atheist would include the spiritual with 
the natural, and say the universe, natural and spiritual, 
presents mysteries beyond our comprehension, but none 
contrary to our reason, he would answer right. 

13. " That although God has given men a revelation, 
there is great uncertainty as to what he meant to say on 
several subjects of great importance;" while the Secu- 
larists think " that the enlightened reason of man is the 
highest and best standard he possesses." 

Ans. There is great uncertainty as to the design of 
some things in nature. There are no subjects of impor- 
tance in the Bible about which there is not plain teach- 
ing to any mind willing to obey God. Revelation is, 
in one sense, a product of the human mind, written in 
books compiled under the guidance of Divine Providence, 
and composed by men under the impression of the Di- 
vine Spirit, when such aids were necessary in order to 
the revelation of the truths of religion. The writers of 
revealed truth would be guided as mediums of truth 
for transmission to others, while in the minds of indi- 



OF THE AGE. 191 

vidual believers the Divine Spirit would aid and en- 
lighten in the discharge of present duties. 

That men have different views of some subjects in 
the Bible grows out of the imperfection of human 
language. The best minds disagree in the interpreta- 
tion of state law, owing to different capacity and ac- 
quirement in the interpreter, as well as imperfection in 
language in the statute ; and so long as man is imperfect, 
and all minds are not alike, it must necessarily be so. 
The honest man, however, who seeks to know in order 
that he may do the truth, will be guided both by Provi- 
dence and. the Divine Spirit in the right way. 

14. " That woman is man's inferior and subordinate, 
—'-was made for his gratification and convenience, while 
man was made for himself and the glory of God." 
Having made this wrong presentation of the Christian 
views, the Atheist answers " that woman is man's equal 
and natural companion, — exists for him only in the 
sense that man exists for her." 

Ans. Christians believe the common-sense doctrine 
that there are different duties and experiences growing 
out of difference of sex. That in some respects man is 
woman's superior, and in some respects woman is man's 
superior. That difference of sex gives different experi- 
ences. That maternity will forever make home the 
woman's place for most years of a mother's active life, 



192 LIVING QUESTIONS 

while it necessitates man's out-door effort. The man 
who does not regard these essential differences is the 
enemy of woman and a rebel against reason. The Xew 
Testament presents the rational view of the subject, and 
while it presents man as the head and responsible pro- 
vider for the family, it speaks of woman in a religious 
sense as his equal, and as one whom he is bound to love 
in the marital relation as he loves himself. 

15. "That God has approved and sanctioned polyg- 
amy, slavery, and despotism ;" to which the Atheist 
rejoins, "Polygamy, slavery, and despotism are evils 
wherever and whenever they exist." 

Ans. Progressive advances is the order of the moral 
world, as it is of the material. In the darker age of 
the Jewish Dispensation, polygamy was in some cases 
tolerated, because, as Christ teaches, of their low moral 
condition, — "the hardness of their hearts." But the 
Great Teacher says at the same time it was not the 
ultimate design of the Creator, as is evident from the 
numerical equality of the sexes. A species of slavery 
likewise existed in the darker Dispensation of Moses, in 
which, as the New Testament teaches, nothing was 
made perfect. All the imperfect usages permitted, be- 
cause of the undeveloped state of men and morals in 
the time of Moses, were expressly repealed by Christ in 
the new and perfect Dispensation. It shows distinctly 



OF THE AGE. 193 

the wickedness of Atheism and Skepticism, that they 
continue to cavil about usages which Christianity con- 
demns and abrogates. Polygamy is forbidden. Love 
instead of cruelty is enjoined, — love even to enemies. 
Retaliation and optional divorce are condemned and 
abrogated, and the perfect morals of the Christian sys- 
tem introduced. These men profess to believe in de- 
velopment as a universal law, and yet refuse to apply 
their own doctrine to moral development. 

16. "That man should take no thought for the mor- 
row. He should pattern after the lilies of the field." 
The Atheist says, on the contrary, " That man should 
attend to the affairs of the world, and take thought for 
the morrow." 

Ans. The supposition that there is anything wrong 

in the words of Jesus grows out of ignorance both of 

the meaning of the words and the application of the 

passage. Jesus did not mean that man should be inert 

in business. The words mean Be not anxious concerning 

the morrow. Do your duty to-day and trust God for 

a blessing on the morrow. Anxiety weakens present 

effort, and indicates a want of faith. God cares for 

sparrows and lilies in their appropriate place; much 

more will He care for those who do present duty and 

trust Him for the future. It is never wise to cross a 

bridge before we come to it. Anxiety weakens effort, 
i 17 



194 LIVING QUESTIONS 

17. "That labor is a penalty inflicted on man for his 
disobedience, and therefore degrading in its very na- 
ture f while the Atheist believes that labor, as man is 
constituted, is a blessing, a source of prosperity, not the 
result of guilt. 

Ans. The charge is so plainly and utterly a perver- 
sion of the Scriptures that it needs no reply. The first 
man was placed in the garden to dress and keep it. 
Jesus himself was born in the class of tradesmen. 
The apostles were laboring men, and Paul taught that 
if a man "would not work, neither should he eat." 
This perversion of the truth, I fear, has an object : it is 
adapted to incline workmen to accept Atheism as favor- 
able to them as a class. The Atheists gained their end 
once and seduced by such lies the laboring men of Paris ; 
the result was lust, rapine, and murder. 

18. " That man's ills and sufferings are ascribable 
largely to the devil, — a being of almost infinite knowl- 
edge, of great energy, and immense power." The in- 
fidel says, "The devil is a humbug." 

Ans. Satan seems to be a favorite objection with the 
Skeptics. Two of this list of objections refer to him. 
A man that denies the existence of evil spirits ought to 
deny the existence of wicked men. If a wicked man 
dies there is at least one evil spirit in existence. Death 
is a change of the body, not of the soul. Temptation 



OF THE AGE. 195 

is necessary in order to develop and strengthen virtue. 
Good spirits in the body or out of the body cannot 
tempt others. There are things to be done that good 
spirits cannot do. God has work for evil spirits : if 
they can be overruled for good why do Atheists object? 

19. "That Jesus Christ was God Almighty, encased 
in human flesh." The Secularists say, " He was a 
reformer, a come-out-er," and esteem him as a benefactor 
without worshipping him as a God. 

Ans. The Skeptics have improved some of late years 
in their views of the Saviour. There is a good deal in 
the form of an expression. Words which contain a 
truth can be so phrased as to make a bad impression. 
The New Testament never says Christ was God and 
man, but God in man. " God was in Christ reconciling 
the world to Himself." There is a moral necessity as well 
as the highest reason in this manifestation of God through 
humanity to humanity. God could not make known His 
moral attributes through a being that had no moral char- 
acter. Power and wisdom can be manifested by the exist- 
ence and structure of other beings, but mercy and con- 
science could be revealed only through a moral nature, 
and man only possesses such a nature. Hence the anthro- 
pology of the Bible. God's personality and moral char- 
acter are revealed in Christ. " Jesus was a Heforcner," 
say they ; and, we add, so are all his true followers. 



196 LIVING QUESTIONS 

20. " That the golden age of the world was in the 
past." Secularists say " it is in the future." 

Ans. The charge is just the opposite of what Chris- 
tians say. Revelation teaches that the world is advan- 
cing to a perfect condition, and that in the future there 
will be abounding light and love by the prevalence of 
the truth as it is in Jesus, and the abolition of evil as it 
is in men and devils. " We, according to his promise, 
look for a new heavens and a new earth in which dwell- 
eth righteousness." Amen, even so come, Lord Jesus ! 



Notes of the Discussion not included in the preceding 
epitome of the argument. 

We have not endeavored to follow the discussion in 
order of time each evening. There were frequent repe- 
titions and reviews of previous arguments. We have 
collected the points of discussion and arranged them 
in topics. These notes, with the preceding resume of 
Atheistic objections, will give a full and we think a fair 
view of modern Atheism, as exhibited by one of its 
best informed advocates. 

It is not probable that Mr. Underwood would endorse 
these notes as perfectly accurate. We may not have 
stated his views as fully nor so ably as he would him- 
self state them ; but we have endeavored to get the 



OF THE AGE. 197 

compass and point of his allegations, and meet them 
fairly and squarely. Including the closing section 
which follows these notes, On the Destiny of 3Ian, as- 
suming the truth of the Atheistic Scheme, we think readers 
will find the clearest, the briefest, and the most satis- 
factory synopsis of the discussion with the Atheists. 

Mr. Underwood affirms that the moral state of the 
world, especially in Eome and Greece, was in advance 
of Christianity, and that the introduction of the Gospel 
was an injury to the cause of human progress. 

If this statement is false, and the contrary true, then 
the active hostility of Secularism to Christianity is not 
only an error but a crime. We think Mr. U. himself 
did not fully examine the grounds' of his statement. 
Rome was in its brightest and best period when Christ 
was crucified and when Paul was imprisoned in the 
capital city; it was the Augustan Age, when the hu- 
man mind had reached a condition the best possible, 
without the aid of Revelation. What, then, was the 
moral condition of the people at this period, and what 
effect was produced by the introduction of Christianity ? 

The Romans worshipped a multitude of gods and 
goddesses. There were some good characteristics in some 
of their idols, but the general effect of their worship 
was to deprave and even imbrute the mind of the 

17* 



198 LIVING QUESTIONS 

worshipper. The best of their divinities were licentious, 
and some of them — as in the case of Leda and the 
swan — were bestial. Xo one doubts the character 
given them by the classic poet : 

" G-ods partial, changeful.passionate, unjust, 
"Whose attributes were rage, revenge, and lust." 

While a few of the best minds doubted, the mass of 
the people were debased by this degrading worship, 
which, in the Augustan Age, they offered not only to 
their gods and demigods, but to their emperors, and 
even to the licentious empress Faustina. 

Now, it is on record that Christianity destroyed this 
gross idolatry in the nation. The letter of Pliny to 
the Emperor Trajan will be an everlasting testimony, 
that cannot be doubted, to the excellent character of the 
early Christians, and the direct influence of Christianity 
in destroying idolatry and desolating the temples of 
idol worship throughout the empire. (See Pliny's Letters 
to Trajan.) 

The hearts and habits of the Romans were, of course, 
as cruel and corrupt as their worship. Their entertain- 
ments showed the cruelty o ' their nature, and fostered 
the spirit of murder in the people. The Emperor 
Probus, for the entertainment of the populace, caused 
six hundred gladiators to combat at one time, three 



OF THE AGE. 199 

hundred of whom were killed. These murderous en- 
tertainments continued until the atrocity was stopped by 
the progress of the Gospel. (See Gibbon, oh. xx, p. 408.) 

And further, the Romans, whose moral character Mr. 
Underwood eulogizes, not only murdered their captives 
in gladiatorial combats, but they murdered their infant 
children without scruple of conscience, and no public 
law condemned the unnatural crime. This worse than 
barbarous practice continued down to the time of Val- 
entinian, when it was arrested by the advance of the 
Gospel. 

In the earlier periods of Rome the father and hus- 
band was an absolute despot. He had power to enslave, 
to sell, or even to kill wife and children. After the 
Punic war, there was a revulsion in regard to marriage. 
Acknowledged cohabitation in equal parties was all that 
was necessary throughout the corrupt nation. Gibbon 
attributes the decline of the nation to this promiscuous 
concubinage. This general profligacy continued until 
marriage was restored by the prevalence of Christianity. 

The best men in the best period of Rome had no 
conception of purity of moral life as taught by Christ. 
Of legal virtues, such as honesty and truth, many of 
them were neither ignorant nor deficient. This is true 
of other barbarous nations. But socially and religiously 
they were as debased as the heart could become. Cato 



200 LIVING QUESTIONS 

the Just lent his wife to a friend. The Antonines, the 
best of their emperors, lived with concubines. Promi- 
nent men lived by hiring their slaves to others as con- 
cubines, and all this moral debasement brought no 
disgrace to the citizen. 

Paul said it was a shame for a Christian even to 
speak of the things done by the heathen of his time; 
and the lowest debasement of the Romans was such that 
even Gibbon, although a skeptic, says he regrets that 
the truth of history compels him to notice it. The 
truth should cause a blush of shame on the cheeks of 
Mr. Underwood and his Atheistic friends, who want so- 
ciety to revert back to the condition of old Rome. The 
beastly vice of sodomy was prevalent in Rome in her 
best estate, and continued until after the introduction of 
Christianity. (See Gibbon, v, page 95.) 

Mr. U. affirms further that art and literature in the 
best ages of Rome and Greece have never been excelled. 
If this were true it would argue nothing against Chris- 
tianity. Artists and poets are by nature, not so much by 
Christianity, except in the moral influence of their pro- 
ductions. Art and literature are good or bad according 
to their moral influence. Much of the literature and art 
of the Greeks and Romans represented absurd and lewd 
subjects. This we all know now, because the evil has 
been made manifest by the light of Christianity; and 



OF THE AGE. 201 

the vile nature of their art has been illustrated by the 
excavations of Pompeii preserved in the museum of 
Naples. It is painful to have to record this grossness 
of heart in connection with elevation of intellect in the 
best men of the best age. Both Socrates and Plato 
were companions of Aspasia, a distinguished harlot of 
their time. Plato advises a community of wives, and 
the Encyclopaedia Britannica tells what the classic 
reader knows — if Mr. Underwood does not — that "pas- 
sages in the ' Dialogues of Plato' display a license 
of impure thought shocking to the feelings of the 
reader." 

I only add to these repulsive features of barbarism of 
heart; that the worst form of a cruel superstition ex- 
isted in Greece and continued in Pome until after the 
Christian era. Lubbock says (page 242), " Many cases 
of human sacrifices are on record in Greek history, and 
among the Romans even down to the time of the Em- 
perors. In Pome a statue of Jupiter was sprinkled 
every year with human blood till the second a.d." 

Now, this is the pit from which the Gospel has res- 
cued the human soul ; and to this moral pollution, fes- 
tering with sodomy, human blood, and all manner of 
impurity, Mr. Underwood desires to take us back. 
You, ladies and gentlemen, who profess to favor Mr. 
U.'s opinions, do you wish to go back and down to that 



202 LIVING QUESTIOXS 

depth of moral darkness and defilement ? Can you 
have a heart to deny and abuse that heavenly Chris- 
tianity which has lifted you and me out of this pit? 
To deny the fact that the Gospel has done this is impos- 
sible. Gibbon — skeptical historian though he was — is 
authority throughout the world, and his authority can- 
not be impeached, because for fact and date he gives 
references that all can examine. 

Before noticing Mr. TJ/s direct objections to the Bible, 
we will note some miscellaneous objections urged by 
him. 

In answer to the statement that after the dark ages of 
Papal rule light increased again in proportion as the 
Bible was translated and disseminated, he replies that 
the light was not occasioned by the Reformation, but it 
originated in Arabia, and was disseminated thence into 
the western nations. This is certainly a surprising dis- 
covery. About eight hundred years before the Reforma- 
tion, some light existed in Arabia through the agency of 
Arabs, Jews, and Christians, who all, in a greater or less 
measure, believed the Bible, especially the elder Scrip- 
tures of the Old Testament. But that light had gone 
out seven hundred years before Luther's time. How a 
light that had ceased to exist seven hundred years before 
could dispel the Papal darkness that existed even to 
blackness, Mr. U. has not told you, and he cannot. Xo, 



OF THE AGE. 203 

ladies and gentlemen, history is true. WycklifT, Tyndale, 
Huss, Luther, by giving the people an open Bible gave 
them the sun that dispelled the moral darkness, — -just 
as certainly as the natural sun gives us the day. 

He tells us that the golden rule of the Saviour was 
anticipated by Confucius, who announced it in the same 
words before Christ was born. It is true that Confucius 
announced the golden rule, but in a negative form. Con- 
fucius says, " Do not what you would not have done to 
you." Jesus says, " Do unto others as ye would have 
them do to you." The one forbids wrong action, the 
other commands the right. But if Confucius was before 
Christ, Moses was before Confucius. In Lev. xix, 18, 
it is written, " Love thy neighbor as thyself," which 
is the golden rule, a thousand years before the sage of 
China was born. 

Mr. U. changes his base, as soldiers say, from Arabia 
and China to Egypt, remarking in passing that the 
Arabs may have obtained their knowledge of one God 
from Persia. We happen to know exactly how the 
knowledge of one God obtained prevalence in Arabia. 
The Arabs are descendants of Ishmael, the son of Abra- 
ham. They recognize their antecedents. Mohammed 
was a reformer. He used the history of Abraham and 
the Monotheism of the Bible in his work of restoring 
Monotheism. Besides, although India and Persia had 



204 LIVING QUESTIONS 

an indistinct apprehension of one supreme God in the 
earliest ages, at the time of the Hegira both regions were 
sunken in idolatry. 

But we are told that whatever there is valuable in the 
Old Testament the Jews derived from Egypt. That 
even the ten commandments existed in Egypt before 
Moses ; and both the laws and the customs of the Jews, 
so far as they were valuable, were derived from the 
Egyptians. In support of this, he reads from an au- 
thor whose name I never heard before, and whose state- 
ments cannot be of much value because they are not 
true. The Egyptians were sunken in the grossest idola- 
tries in the time of Moses. They worshipped animals, 
from the insect to the ox. Moses taught the worship 
of one God, the Creator. The first four commandments 
related to the worship of Jehovah, the true God ; the 
last of the four promising length of days in the land 
of Canaan as a reward of filial obedience. The Israel- 
ites sacrificed the ox and other objects that the Egyptians 
worshipped. And although idolatrous tendencies which 
they had imbibed in Egypt clung to them for years, 
yet idol worship was a capital offence, and the nation in 
the end was redeemed from the pollution. The Jewish 
people learned bestiality from the Egyptians, and prac- 
tised the vice clandestinely until the crime w T as sup- 
pressed by the law of Moses. See Lev. xvii, 7. [The 



OF THE AGE. 205 

word devils is in Heb. hairy creatures.~\ Jews' letters to 
Voltaire, p. 160. 

Mr. U. likewise affirms that Christianity is a persecu- 
ting power, or that it begets persecution, and if his views 
are true it is one of the most cruel and malignant in- 
fluences ever introduced on the earth. I am sorry if 
Mr. Underwood and his friends do not know better. 
All history, as well as the principles of the Gospel itself, 
declare against this statement. True Christians are the 
ones who have been persecuted. The Papal power per- 
secuted. The inquisition was a frightful instrument of 
cruelty; but everybody knows that true Christians 
were the persecuted instead of being the persecutors. 

He says Christianity opposed itself to science, and 
mentions the case of Galileo, but Galileo was a Chris- 
tian. So were the most distinguished scientific men of 
all the ages : Tycho Brahe, Laplace, Newton, Herschel. 
But we are told it w T as all done in the name of Chris- 
tianity. No doubt about that. The devil never con- 
ducts an enterprise in his own name. The Atheists, in 
the name of liberty, filled France with terror, murder, 
and lust. Catholics have persecuted and Protestants 
have not been guiltless. But their persecutions were 
contrary to the Gospel, not in accordance with it. 
This fact is settled now incontrovertibly, because by 
the prevalence of Christianity the spirit of persecution 

18 



206 LIVING QUESTIONS 

has now been almost overcome in all lands that have an 
open Bible. Persecution by the true Christian is impos- 
sible. The disciples saw some casting out evil spirits from 
the souls of men, and forbade them, because they fol- 
lowed not with them. Jesus said, " Forbid them not." 
The Samaritaus refused to receive Jesus and his disciples 
into their houses, and the disciples proposed to punish 
them by fire. Jesus rebuked his disciples, and said, 
" Ye know not your own spirit." He said, " Pray for 
your enemies," and return good for evil. The blind can 
see that with such principles persecution is impossible. 

Mr. Underwood has several times spoken of Ethan 
Allen, Thomas Paine, and Miss Frances Wright, as 
persons of Atheistic or Skeptical principles, but whose 
life and labors tended to bless the world. We have 
little to say in regard to Ethan Allen. We suppose he 
lived and died, as others have done, in a skeptical state 
of mind. There is a statement that on his death-bed, 
when asked whether he desired that his daughter should 
adopt his wife's principles or his own, he answered 
in favor of the religious principles of his wife. This 
statement is said to be untrue by the Secularists. The 
statement is of little importance. Ethan Allen was a 
patriot, and true to his country, and we suppose a man 
may be so who does not profess to follow Christ. 

In regard to Paine, his patriotic essays were written 



OF THE AGE. 207 

before he actively engaged in his effort against Chris- 
tianity. But as he imbibed the principles of the French 
Commune he became evil in principle and practice, 
until his example became both corrupt and corrupting. 
He was the only man that ever dared to denounce 
Washington as an apostate or an impostor. In the 
English edition of Paine's works, in a letter dated 
February 22, 1795, he wrote of George Washington as 
follows : 

" As to you, sir, treacherous in private friendship (for 
so you have been to me, and that in the day of danger) 
and a hypocrite in public life, the world will be puzzled 
to decide whether you are an apostate or an impostor, 
whether you have abandoned good principles, or whether 
you ever had any." This man, whom Mr. U. commends 
before such an audience as this, closed his career by se- 
ducing the wife of De Bonville, a Paris bookseller. He 
brought this woman with him to America, where, in 
seclusion and debased by intemperance and adultery, he 
died. (As indubitable authority for these statements 
see Encyclopedia Americana.) 

In regard to Frances Wright, whom he commends to 
his lady friends as a model woman, it ought to be ad- 
mitted that she was a woman of unusual strength of 
mind and indomitable courage in propagating her opin- 
ions. She was the forerunner of Victoria Woodhull, did 



208 LIVING QUESTIONS 

not believe in marriage, and lived in open adultery with a 
Frenchman by the name of Du Rusmont. By him she 
had an illegitimate child, and the last years of her life 
were spent in the courts of law contesting with De 
Rusmont the question who should have the charge of 
the illegitimate offspring. Mr. U. says these cases were 
not adultery. I use the words in their legal significance, 
and as all virtuous people understand them. 

We come now to the several objections alleged against 
the Scriptures. You will notice that Mr. XL's objec- 
tions are made for the most part to the laws or usages 
of the Old Testament, — a Dispensation introductory to 
Christianity, perfectly adapted to the end it accom- 
plished, but in itself imperfect both in matter and 
morals. The New Testament declares that " the law 
made nothing perfect," that, "it could not make the 
comers thereunto perfect as pertaining to the conscience." 
Christ forbade putting the new wine of the New Dis- 
pensation into the old bottles of Moses ; but we Chris- 
tian ministers have been doing this wrong to Christianity 
from the time of the translations even until now. By 
this means the church has filled the world with Skeptics. 
The law was by Moses ; its penalties and rewards were 
all in this world, and had no reference whatever to a 
future life. " Grace and truth are by Jesus Christ;" and 
the penalties and rewards of the New Dispensation are 



OF THE AGE. 209 

spiritual — " eternal life" to the believer, and " perdition 
at the day of judgment" to ungodly men. Revelation 
is a development : there is first the Patriarchal or dis- 
pensation of power ; then the Mosaic or dispensation of 
law; then the Christian or dispensation of love and 
truth. 

Mr. U. says that the law for the destruction of the 
stubborn son, by information of his parents, was bar- 
barous and cruel. Several things ought to be said in 
regard to this. The law of Moses accomplished its end 
by immediate and capital penalties ; no future punish- 
ment was known ; a life unprofitable to the family and 
the nation, and rebellious against God, was forfeited ; 
there were no jails, and there could be none ; and where 
an evil-doer was beyond the reach of law, and irreclaim- 
able by parental influence, capital punishment was to be 
inflicted. But there is no case on record in which a cul- 
prit was punished on the presentation of his parents. 
The law, therefore, prevented the crime; and, as com- 
plaint was first to be made to the judges, the penalty 
could not be inflicted by the absolute will of the parents. 
Thus all allegations of cruelty or injustice in the case 
vanish. 

But what shall I say of the consistency of the Atheists 
in presenting this objection? In Rome, whose laws and 
usages Mr. U. lauds to the skies, parents murdered their 

18* 



210 LIVING QUESTIONS 

children for no crime, and without appeal to the judges. 
And the Atheists in France, led by Carrier at Nantz, 
slaughtered hundreds of innocent children, while Atheism 
in office approved the horrid crime. 

The Old Testament, even under the imperfect system 
of Moses, was a thousand-fold better than the conduct 
of the Atheists in this era of light. 

Again, we are told that in war the Jews not only slew 
their enemies, but the captives, men, women, and chil- 
dren, except the younger females, w r hom they took as 
concubines. The Jews did many things which the Gospel, 
and the civilization it has produced, enables us to con- 
demn. The law of retaliation is a law of nature and 
a law of God in nature. The law of benevolence — to 
love and pray for their enemies — was unknown to the 
Jews, and it is yet but imperfectly apprehended, although 
explicitly taught in the Gospel. Do unto others as they 
do unto you was the law of Moses in war, and it is the 
law of instinct and of the natural man. In every case 
the Old Testament writers proclaim that their unchris- 
tian cruelty was on the principle of the lex talionis. Take 
the cases cited in the 109th Psalm. David invokes 
curses and disaster and death upon his enemies, and why 
he does so he states very distinctly: in verses 16, 17 he 
says, " Because that he remembered not to shew mercy, 
but persecuted the poor and needy man, that he might 



OF THE AGE. 211 

even slay the broken in heart : as he loved cursing so 
let it come unto him : as he delighted not in blessing so 
let it be far from him.'* That is simply, let him be 
treated as he treats us and others. This was the law of 
Moses and the law of nature. The Gospel repeals this 
natural law of Moses. 

So in the 137th Psalm, where the cruelty of the law 
of retaliation is expressed in its strongest form, the 
psalmist claims this law as a justification of his de- 
nouncement. He says, " O daughter of Babylon who 
art to be destroyed, happy shall he be that rewardeth 
thee as thou hast served us; happy shall he be that 
taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones." 
Now, does Mr. U. object, and say God ought not to 
permit the existence of such a law? He professes to 
reverence Nature. The law of retaliation is a law of 
Nature. The law of the rule of the strongest is a law 
of Nature, moving all the animal world below man, and 
moving men in all the past and present, except only so 
far as the Gospel law of benevolence has gained preva- 
lence. The Gospel is the grace above nature. These old 
laws of the Jews that Mr. U. loves to refer to are ex- 
pressly repealed by Jesus Christ, who says, " It was said 
by those in the old time, an eye for an eye and a tooth 
for a tooth, but I say unto you that ye resist not evil." 

Again, the divorce laws of Moses referred to were 



212 LIVING QUESTIONS 

unequal and unjust, while they were the best the state 
of the people would admit. These were likewise ex- 
pressly repealed by Jesus, who says, " It hath been said, 
whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a 
writing of divorcement, but I say unto you, that who- 
soever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of 
fornication, causeth her to commit adultery." 

So in regard to the female captives taken in war, Mr. 
U. tells you that Moses consigned the unmarried women 
to the power and lust of their captors. That Moses did 
many things that were wrong there is no doubt, but if he 
did this he violated his own law T s, and deserved condign 
punishment. In Deut. xxi, 10-14,-it is written, " When 
thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the 
Lord thy God hath delivered them into thy hands, and 
thou hast taken them captive, and seest among the cap- 
tives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her, 
that thou wouldest have her as a wife ; * * she shall 
put off the raiment of her captivity and remain in thy 
house, and bewail her father and mother a full month : 
and after that thou shalt be her husband and she shall be 
thy wife. And it shall be if thou hast no delight in her, 
then thou shalt let her go whither she will; but thou shalt 
not sell her at all for money." Now, we affirm there 
w*as not existing in the world, at that age, a law so benevo- 
lent in regard to female captives as this law of Moses ; 



OF THE AGE. 213 

yet this is the standing text of all the Skeptics in all 
ages, in their vituperations of the Old Dispensation. 

Now, Mr. U. knows that all these old laws, with the 
whole introductory Dispensation, have passed away. 
Why, then, does he refer to the imperfect, which has been 
superseded by the perfect ? The New Testament says 
that " the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in 
of a better hope did." Mr. U. knows this ; now, can it 
be possible that he wishes to mislead his hearers? And 
can it be possible that there are any so dull-minded that 
they do not see through this transparent sophistry? 

But he tells us, in reply, that ministers of all denomi- 
nations defend these unjust and unequal laws of Moses. 
The statement is not quite correct. That many minis- 
ters apologize for the sins of David which the prophet 
rebuked and God punished is true. Such men do, as 
he says, come from our schools and theological semina- 
ries; but such teachers I hope are passing away, and 
the seminaries that produce them ought to be abolished. 
God requires men only to live up to the light that He 
gives them in any age. The light of the Old Dispensa- 
tion was darkness compared with New Testament truth 
and duty. God is true were every man a liar ! 

There is but a single other reference to the Jewish 
laws that I will notice: the case in Deut. xiv, 21. 
Anything torn by dogs, or that died without the blood 



214 LIVING QUESTIONS 

being separated from it, was not to be eaten by Jews, 
but might be given to aliens. The law of blood was de- 
signed to separate the Jews from the idolatrous feasts and 
from intercourse with idolaters, and in itself, in regard 
to most animals, was healthful and right. But conies, 
birds, and other game, we now eat with the blood ; and 
while the Jews were forbidden the meat for a higher 
purpose, it was, for the alien, proper meat in many cases. 
But the New Testament, in the vision of Peter, expressly 
abrogates the entire ceremonial in regard to clean and 
unclean animals. This is enough. We turn now to 
some general objections to the New Testament as well 
as the Old. 

The prophecies of the Scriptures, we are told, are 
" happy guesses" if fulfilled. " Many of them might 
have been anticipated by any shrewd observer;" and 
with time enough, as with the destruction of ancient 
cities and countries, the fulfilment is a natural event, 
as the old always in time gives place to the new. Much 
of this statement is true. Making the local prophecies 
of the Old Testament a proof of Revelation by religious 
teachers, is an error if applied to our times. But there 
are prophecies which no human sagacity could forecast, 
and which natural laws do not account for. These 
ought to be evidence to the Skeptic. The prophecy of 
Moses concerning the future history of the Jews — their 



OF THE AGE. 215 

terrible sufferings, and yet their preservation as a distinct 
people, contrary to the laws of nations and of nature — 
is a case in point. The Jews are here to-day to testify 
to the truth of prophecy. They are now the living 
evidence of prophecy fulfilled. (See Lev. xvi, 44, and 
Deut. xviii, 59.) 

The prophecy in Isaiah liii is similar, although re- 
lating to the Messiah, whom the Jews crucified : " His 
soul was to be made an offering for sin," and subse- 
quently to his death "he should see his seed, prolong his 
days, and the pleasure of the Lord prosper in his hands." 
These sequents are in discordance with the ordinary 
operations of natural law, and yet are fully fulfilled in 
the death of Christ and the progress of his kingdom. 

Further, the prophetic spirit of the parables of Jesus 
(an aspect of his teaching which theologians have over- 
looked) is a striking and clear evidence of prophetic 
vision. The parables were uttered before the cross. 
Jesus said, the little seed should grow to become the 
largest of herbs. After thus saying he was crucified and 
forsaken by his own disciples, and yet his prediction is 
verified to-day. He told the process of the kingdom of 
truth by the parable of the sower before it was inaugu- 
rated, — telling the different effects which would be pro- 
duced by truth upon different minds till the end of the 
world. This forestatement accords precisely with the 



216 LIVING QUESTIONS 

facts to-day. So in other parable the prophecy is distinct, 
and the fulfilment in our time is actualized in the expe- 
riences of individuals and of the church. 

Miracles also are said to be impossible, and Mr. 
Hume's argument is presented as unanswerable. Al- 
most every theological writer, whether well-informed 
or not, has supposed himself able to answer Hume. 
We shall not try. If the hearers interested in such 
questions w T ill turn to a well-known book — " The Phi- 
losophy of the Plan of Salvation/' chapter on Miracles 
— they will find a new and, as I think, a satisfactory 
view of that subject. In accepting miracles it is not 
necessary to suppose a counteraction of natural laws, 
only so far as one law may be used to counteract an- 
other, as the magnet counteracts the law of gravity. A 
superior Being may use the laws of nature to affect the 
bodies and minds of men in ways unknown to human 
wisdom and superior to human power. This is reason- 
able, and this is all that it is necessary to assume in 
accepting miracles. 

But Mr. U. comes now on the fourth night to make 
a direct assault on the Theistic argument, and on man's 
hope of a future life. He says the argument from effect 
to cause, from a design to a designer, fails, because it 
implies an endless series. If God designed the human 
mind, what designed the mind of God ? This is sup- 



OF THE AGE. 217 

posed in some way to invalidate the rational inference of 
a cause adequate to the effect. This is mere effort to 
escape into the dark, and Mr. U. has admitted as much 
several times in this discussion. He has said the finite 
cannot comprehend the infinite, hence all reasoning about 
a God is futile. Now, he argues that the finite effect 
cannot comprehend the infinite Cause; therefore there is 
no such Cause. His admission nullifies his argumenta- 
tion. He has reminded us likewise many times that 
reason should be sole arbiter in all cases, whether the 
question relates to God or to man. Now, both the limi- 
tation of the human mind and the decisions of the reason 
require us to stop when we reach a sufficient cause for any 
effect. Here is a steam-engine, — here is this church- 
building, — it has been devised and constructed by man. 
We find in man a sufficient cause for the design and the 
construction. Now, suppose I should say I will not be- 
lieve man designed and constructed this church without 
you tell me who constructed man. Reason rebels against 
this nonsense. It cannot resist the belief that man built 
the house; while as a finite being it cannot judge of the 
infinite. " Every house is builded by some man, but 
He that built all things is God." But God revealed 
himself in Christ, in order to bring His attributes within 
the comprehension of the finite mind, and thus faith 
becomes the aid and complement of our reason. 
k' 19 



218 LIVING QUESTIONS 

But Mr. U. adopts and urges the view of the evolu- 
tionists as a sufficient cause of all phenomena, even the 
existence of conscience and reason. He says, with Tyn- 
dall, there is a potency in matter itself, by which it has 
evolved itself from the lowest to the highest forms in 
existence. From the molecule to the mollusk — from the 
mollusk to the mammal — from the mammal to man — 
higher species ever evolving out of lower oues. We 
will not spend time with this assumption. "We say the 
potency is over matter, not in it ; and that a potency that 
connects the end with the beginning can be no less than 
God. Besides, if there be such a law of evolution, con- 
stantly developing things from lower to higher forms 
and faculties, then nature will in the end produce God 
instead of God creating nature ! The evolutionists are 
guilty of the absurdity of putting the effect for the cause. 

But this doctrine of evolution has difficulties to con- 
tend with on the field of reason which will be hard to 
overcome. Instinct is most perfect in the young ani- 
mal. There are checks and balances in the creation 
above and beyond evolution. The vegetable kingdom 
inhales carbonic acid ; the animals exhale it. The two 
are balanced. Is that evolution ? The location of coal, 
upon which manufactures, commerce, and even life de- 
pend, is in a series of rocks, myriads of ages anterior 
to man, who uses it. It is not evolved out of any series 



OF THE AGE. 219 

of rocks before it, but produced and located by a com- 
bination of mundane agencies worked together by some 
intelligent potency to produce the end. Besides, the ul- 
timate atoms of matter themselves are marked by design. 
They have definite weight and size, and are adjusted to 
each other by elective and cohesive affinities. The 
highest authority — the younger Herschel- — proclaims 
them "a manufactured article." Now, there is no in- 
tervening step between this ultimate design and the 
supreme Creator. Design, then, runs through nature 
directly to Nature's God. 

But, in conclusion, let me impress upon this audience 
that there is a knowledge of God better than nature can 
give. Nature is yet imperfect, and hence we cannot 
infer the perfect from the imperfect. A Secularist who 
reasons from nature only can never know God. His 
natural attributes — "eternal power and Godhead" — he 
may learn from Nature; but the personality of God 
— the richness of the Divine love, the perfection of the 
Divine righteousness — are not revealed in nature. Hence 
the darkness which you often noticed in the words of 
my able opponent when he spoke of God as learned 
from the volume of nature. God becomes personal in 
Christ. In Him "life and immortality are brought to 
light," and "whosoever believeth in Him shall not 
perish, but have eternal life." 



220 LIVING QUESTIONS 



CHAPTER VII. 

KECOXCILIATIOX OR AT-ONE-MENT. 

The Christian doctrine of atonement is held confi- 
dingly by the evangelical churches; but determinedly 
rejected by skeptical writers, as it is likewise by most of 
those calling themselves Unitarians. 

It should be stated at the outset, that the subject of 
sacrifice has its essential relations with the moral nature 
of man — the conscience, the affections, the w T ill — rather 
than with the intellect. The love-power of sacrifice is 
appropriated by faith. Its relations to man's moral 
nature, and to God's moral government, are too profound 
to be fully developed by mere logical elucidation. The 
sacrifice of Christ is a manifestation of power and love 
transferred by faith to the consciousness of the believer. 
The skeptic cannot know this. Hence the vital evi- 
dence is absent in his case. But there are adaptations 
of the atonement to human susceptibility, there are 
grounds of its necessity in moral government, which 
may be seen by the reason ; and seeing ■ these, a reason 



OF THE AGE. 221 

that is reverent will accept the aid of faith which gives 
the substance of what the reason had given us by dis- 
tinct indication. 

We inquire, then, Is there any want in the nature 
of man which is met only by the sacrifice of Christ, 
offered not for himself, but for those who will accept 
its mercy by faith ? 

It cannot be doubted that there is in man a conscious- 
ness of sin, or of something else, call it what you will, 
that leads him to feel the want of a sacrifice; or rather 
that leads him to offer sacrifices as a means of reconcilia- 
tion with God. Since the world began man has had 
something in his soul that has led him to offer sacrifice. 
We inquire neither for the reason of the fact, nor for 
the form of the fact, but for the fact itself. Men may 
call the fact propitiation, expiation, substitution, by any 
or all these names, still the thing sought by the soul is 
plain : it is peace with God, a mitigation of the con- 
sciousness of sin, reconciliation, at-one-ment. Super- 
stitious usages have been connected with sacrifice, and 
priestcraft has turned the offering of the sin-oppressed 
soul to a selfish account ; but the perversion of the fact 
does not ignore the existence of a sense of want in the 
soul, which has produced in all ages, and among all 
nations, the various phenomena of sacrifice. 

The ultimate truth in the case then is, that there is 
19* 



222 LIVING QUESTIONS 

something in the human soul that leads men to seek 
peace with God by sacrifice. The form may be varied 
never so much. Some may inflict torture upon them- 
selves ; some part with what they deem most precious, 
even a son or a daughter; some make a pilgrimage; 
some offer the first-fruits of grain or of cattle. Whatever 
th.e form, the phenomena are all produced by the one 
want of the sin-conscious soul, a desire of peace, or 
at-one-ment with God. 

The want of atonement felt in the soul is as universal 
as the sense of sin. Man, therefore, as a sinful being, 
naturally seeks reconciliation by sacrifice, because his 
reason, as well as his moral sense, teaches him that sin 
alienates and separates from God. 

In this connection notice an important fact, a fact 
which is evidence not only of the darkened state of the 
human mind, but likewise of the necessity of revelation, 
especially of the revelation of the mercy of God by 
sacrifice. While the sense of sin, which is universal, 
produces in men the sense of want which demands a 
propitiation, yet to offer self, or suffering, or any object 
we can call our own, produces selfishness and pride in 
the soul, instead of benevolence, gratitude, and humility. 

We feel the want of a sacrifice, but nothing we pos- 
sess produces the effect necessary in order to peace of 
conscience and purity of heart. The man who goes 



OF THE AGE. 223 

upon a pilgrimage to Mecca, or to any other shrine, 
especially if he walk on his knees a part of the way, 
returns to his home in a censorious and self-righteous 
spirit ; his self-sacrifice having led him away from hu- 
mility, and rendered gratitude impossible. He cannot 
be grateful to God for a salvation which he himself 
worked out for himself. So with the devotee who tor- 
tures himself. So in the case of those who give, as a 
propitiation, money or cattle. The effect necessarily 
connected with sacrifice, when that sacrifice is made by 
self for self, is the opposite of that which the sacrifice 
of Christ for the sinner is adapted to produce. The one 
produces self-righteousness and self-dependence, the 
other gratitude and dependence on God. 

This then is the actual condition of man in his natu- 
ral state. He has a sense of sin, and the accompany- 
ing sense of the necessity of sacrifice; but the selfish 
sacrifices to which his natural want leads produce evil 
and not good in the soul. Instead of rendering a man 
humble and grateful, the sacrifice prompted by the natu- 
ral want, and offered by self for self, produces pride 
and impiety. It has done so since the beginning of the 
world, and would have continued to do so until the 
end of the world, if Divine revelation and Divine love 
had not revealed Christ crucified, which rescues the 
soul from selfish sacrificing. Skeptics cannot deny these 



224 LIVING QUESTIONS 

facts. If they reject the Gospel solution of them, we 
defy them to furnish any other that does not impugn 
either the justice or the mercy of God ; and thus involve 
the difficulty in deeper darkness. "The Lamb slain 
from the foundation of the world," to be " testified to 
all in due time," is the only solution. 

In what way, then, could the natural want of pro- 
pitiation be met, and the soul receive spiritual good by 
the sacrifice ? 

We have anticipated the answer to this question. But 
let us look at one or two particulars. In the first place, 
it is necessary, in order to the formation of a benevolent 
character, that the motive of our action be out of self. 
What I do for another's good makes me more benevo- 
lent. What I do from selfish motives makes me more 
selfish. Now, the man who has faith in Christ's love- 
sacrifice for us is redeemed from a selfish motive. He 
labors for Christ's sake. Christ's sacrifice moves him. 
He is God-moved, not self-moved. Christ becomes 
motive, both in the heart and in the will. Faith pro- 
duces gratitude and good works, but works can never 
produce faith. 

The sacrifice of Christ, then, is a necessary part of the 
moral system which includes man as a sinner. Without 
it the natural sense of sin and dependence produces sac- 
rifices which work injury to the human soul. With 



OF THE AGE. 225 

it the sense of sin in believers is cancelled by a sense 
of reconciliation ; and reason and conscience find rest by 
trust in the Divine sacrifice. A sense of dependence, by 
faith, places the soul in its true position. It depends 
not on itself, but on the love of God manifested in 
Christ's sacrifice. And every time we pray in his name 
the sense of dependence and gratitude is renewed in the 
mind. 

The introductory Dispensation of Moses produced, so 
far as an initiatory process of types and figures could 
produce, the salutary ideas which are produced under 
the Christian Dispensation by the sacrifice of Christ. 

The faith and ritual of the Mosaic institution were 
such, that the sacrifice offered was not deemed the prop- 
erty of the individual, but as belonging to the Lord. 
(Exodus xiii, 11-16.) The Lord permitted the redemp- 
tion by sacrifice of the first-born, which belonged to Him 
by the most solemn covenant. The ceremonial was such 
that the offering was to the mind of the Jew the Lord's 
sacrifice, while yet it was permitted to be offered in be- 
half of the sinner, for a sin- or a peace-offering. Thus 
the idea of ownership in the offering was destroyed by 
the plan of the Mosaic economy; hence, the concomi- 
tant idea of pride and self-righteousness could not follow 
the offering. The fee of the sacrifice was in Jehovah, 
not in the sinner who offered it. 

K* 



226 LIVING QUESTIONS 

But as a sense of sin would again arise by renewed 
transgression or omission of known duty, hence a suc- 
cession of sacrifices was the burden of the old law. 
" These sacrifices," says the apostle, " could not make 
the comers thereunto perfect." The renewed sense of 
sin required a renewed sacrifice. The thing needed to 
meet the want was one sacrifice that could be pleaded 
perpetually, which would thus make the comers perfect, 
and supersede forever the offering of sacrifices by peni- 
tent worshippers. Hence the whole system is fulfilled in 
the sacrifice of Christ. He is " the end of the law, of 
sacrifice, to every one that believeth." " Nor yet that 
he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth 
into the holy place every year with the blood of others" 
(Heb. ix, 25); " but now once in the end of the Dispensa- 
tion hath he appeared, to put away sin by the sacrifice 
of himself." Hence, " the blood of Christ, who by the 
eternal Spirit offered himself without spot unto God, 
will purge your consciences from dead works to serve 
the living God." 

It is not necessary to inquire, as some have done, 
whether in the darkness of the age the divine Father 
adapted the sacrifices which the natural want had pro- 
duced, and which were then existing, to the end of in- 
itiating the one sacrifice offered by the eternal Spirit, 
which would more perfectly purify the conscience and 



OF THE AGE. 227 

heart, and produce obedience by a right motive. It is 
enough to know the fact that the sacrifice of Christ does 
purify the heart, does speak peace to the conscience, does 
redeem the soul from selfish or dead works, and does 
produce living works, — i.e., works of love in those who 
are servants of the living God. 

There is another aspect of the atonement which is fre- 
quently brought to view in the Scriptures, and which 
many consider the foundation of its necessity. 

Man has an innate sense of justice and right. This 
is a distinguishing attribute of his moral nature. A 
sense of responsibility for all moral action of which con- 
science takes cognizance is based upon it. A sense of 
the evil and desert of sin arises, in a great measure, from 
the sense of justice, which is in conflict with sin. Law 
is the development of justice, as benevolence is the de- 
velopment of love. Now, love often develops itself in 
acts which are superior to law, because they are acts of 
self-denial which law or justice does not demand. But 
laws are the immutable rules of the creation, physical 
and moral ; and the best exercise of mercy is to aid in 
bringing the ignorant and erring back to light and law. 
Justice, then, underlies mercy, and mercy is exercised 
in maintenance of the principles of eternal justice. 
Mercy rises above law only to bring back the transgressor 
into conformity to law. 



228 LIVING QUESTIONS 

Now, God having given to man this intuitive sense 
of justice, would not violate it by atonement (or in any 
other way). Besides, God Himself possesses the attri- 
bute of justice, and His moral government, even in the 
administration of mercy, must be based upon it. 

The principle of justice, then, which develops itself in 
law cannot be sacrificed to the power of mercy which 
develops itself in benevolence ; nor can the one produce 
the effects which the other does in the human mind. 
Gratitude cannot be exercised fully for an action in 
others which the law requires them to perform. We 
must see in the act something of the mercy which is 
above law, producing acts of personal self-denial for 
us, before gratitude can flow spontaneously. But the 
being who, while he maintains the principles of justice, 
exercises mercy by acts of self-denial which the law 
does not require, commends himself both to the con- 
science and affections of moral beings, and begets in all 
right minds not only a regard for righteousness, but at 
the same time a sense of grateful love for him as a 
benefactor. 

There are many who seem to have no right sense of 
the principles of justice and mercy as they relate to 
moral government. This state of mind is born of igno- 
rance and sin. God is not only the Father, especially 
of those who are " born of the Spirit," but He is the 



OF THE AGE. 229 

ruler and judge of men. A father may pardon a son* 
for an offence against himself alone • but if he is a mag- 
istrate, and that son commits the same offence against 
the public law, he cannot pardon him without forfeiting 
his character as a ruler, or impairing the sense of justice 
in the public mind. 

If the sense of justice is of God and in God, He will 
maintain it in moral government. He will maintain 
righteousness by law, and love will be manifested only 
in a form that will produce repentance by turning the 
disobedient " to the obedience of the Just." 

A proclamation of pardon on repentance alone would 
render repentance a selfish act, or if proclaimed before 
the act it would license sin. " God is love," and there- 
fore in governing the world He would exercise benevo- 
lence ; but benevolence would be exercised in such a 
manner as to maintain the sense of justice, which is the 
basis of moral government. 

We desire not only to elucidate this subject, but to 
produce positive conviction in relation to it. Instead 
of reproducing the same thought, allow me to refer 
to the chapters on law and atonement in my work, 
" God Revealed in Creation and in Christ," beginning 
with the second book, and thence onward to the 198th 
page. 

I commend most heartily the whole subject of law 
20 



230 LIVING QUESTIONS 

and atonement there set forth. Let them be read with 
the conviction in mind, that in order to maintain the 
principle of justice in the minds of intelligent beings, 
God must develop and maintain this principle in His 
own moral government. And in connection with this, 
that benevolence, which is above law, can be govern- 
mentally exercised only to bring back transgressors to 
obedience to law. As law is the only foundation of 
order in the moral universe, and of safety and happiness 
to the creature, benevolence can be exercised in no way 
that is congruous with the system, except by the resto- 
ration of offenders, pardoned because transformed from 
love of sin to God. 

This inviolability of moral law finds a sanction in the 
reason and conscience of men. The moral law is an 
expression of the will of God. He could not, therefore, 
permit sin without permitting a violation of His own 
will, which would be absurd. Besides, if God is holy 
He ought not to make a law which would permit sin. 
No man will say that God ought to make a law that 
would allow a single transgression. Now, if the reason 
and conscience that God has given men say, and sanc- 
tion the saying, that God ought not to permit sin, who 
dare rebel against His moral nature, and say that He has 
done so ? Reason affirms, conscience sanctions, and the 
moral law reveals, the same penalty that is written 



OF THE AGE. 231 

against the transgressor of every other law of the uni- 
verse, — The transgressing subject shall die. 

How, then, shall man be restored and pardoned? 
How shall the evil propension be eradicated, and the 
evil he had occasioned in others be balanced and com- 
pensated for ? Is there any method by which — without 
impairing the sense of justice — benevolence, which is 
above law, may restore the transgressor to obedience, 
and arrest the evils which his sin has occasioned in 
other minds ? This is the problem of the atonement, 
viewed in the light of law and of the solidarity of 
mankind. 

You will understand what I mean when I apply this 
philosophical term to the human race. It is as true of 
the human family as of any other family in natural his- 
tory. The phrases of the New Testament, in regard to 
sin and salvation, assume, in many passages, the idea of 
the solidarity of mankind. A true exposition of the 
atonement cannot be given without taking this doctrine 
into account. " As in Adam all died, so in Christ shall 
all be made alive." First the natural ; then the spiritual. 
The latter counteracting the former ; and God over all. 

There are, in the physical universe, compensations 
which are placed over against each other ; and thus the 
inequalities of the various parts of a system are met and 
balanced. These compensations or adjustments are 



232 LIVING QUESTIONS 

made by the Creator, aDd they become at once the evi- 
dences of His wisdom and goodness. Notice ! 

1. The moral law written on the heart, which re- 
quires supreme love to God and impartial love to man, 
is the rule of reason and righteousness ; and being the 
will of God, it is the obligatory law for all intelligent 
and moral beings. From this statement I presume 
there will be no dissent. 

2. Now, accepting the law as the rule of life, it is 
admitted that man falls below its requirements; that, 
judged by the law, he is condemned as a transgressor. 
He is guilty in view of his own conscience, knowledge, 
and ability. He is likewise guilty in nature, or in 
character, not having the disposition to fulfil his duties 
according to the example of Christ. The penalties of 
the law are therefore against him, and he can neither 
pardon himself nor beget that love in himself which is 
the fulfilling of the law. 

3. Now, is there any compensation in the moral uni- 
verse for this aberration of man from the sphere of law ? 
Is there a recuperative principle in the moral as there is 
in the physical system of things? Is there a redeeming 
power adapted to the nature of the case ? Let us see. 

The thing required in order to moral compensation is 
that some being or beings, united in the same system 
with man, should possess a moral worth rising above 



OF THE AGE. 233 

law in the same degree that man falls below it, and that 
this worth should complement the natural want of love 
by increase of love. 

Now, we postulate that Jesus Christ, by his sacrifice, 
meets this condition in the equation. The law cannot 
demand the sacrifice of the innocent for the guilty. Its 
requirement can rise no higher than perfect obedience. 
The death of Christ, therefore, was above law; and if it 
tended to honor the law by restoring transgressors to 
obedience, it accomplished on one side an actual balance 
against what was deficient on the other side. 

The question, then, of vital interest is, Does the super- 
merit of Christ, which is above law, practically counter- 
work the demerit of man, which is below law? We 
affirm that this result is actually and practically accom- 
plished in every one that believes in the Divine sacrifice 
of the Redeemer for his sin. 

" Love is the fulfilling of the law." Christ's sacrifice 
was a love-sacrifice, a sacrifice produced by Divine love. 
The law required obedience, but could not produce it. 
It required love, but could not beget love. The sacrifice 
of Christ is a revealment of Divine love, and hence, as 
everything begets its kind, by the love of God manifest 
in Christ, love for God who was in Christ is begotten in 
believers. 

"If men love God, they will keep His command- 
20* 



234 LIVING QUESTIONS 

ments." Hence the disposition to obedience is restored 
in the soul of every one who believes in Christ ; so. that 
the current of death which originated in Adam is met 
and counteracted by the current of life which originated 
in Christ. One was made a " living soul," that is, an 
earthly being; the other is a "quickening," that is, a 
life-giving, Spirit. 

Faith in Christ disposes men to love and obey him. 
It produces peaceful obedience in the soul ; it casts out 
sin ; it works by love, and purines the heart. This is 
eternal life. 

What, then, is the thing which constitutes the merit 
and power of the Divine sacrifice? We answer, its 
merit is in its love, which is above law. Its personal 
suffering endured for others. This fact likewise consti- 
tutes its power. I cannot love with the love of grati- 
tude one who does no more for me than the law requires 
him to do. But when love transcends law, and one res- 
cues me by a sacrifice of himself, a sacrifice which love 
prompted, but which law did not require, then the heart 
of every believer responds by grateful love to the Re- 
deemer. Thus " faith works by love," and love works 
by obedience, and affectionate obedience is restoration and 
salvation. 

The merit, then, is found in the sacrifice of Christ, 
which, as an expression of Divine love, restores the 



OF THE AGE. 235 

transgressor and procures pardon by fitting him for par- 
don in the sight of the law. By this merit — not his own 
— the sinner can be pardoned, because by its power he is 
turned from sin and restored to obedience. 

And finally, the doctrine of atonement, as held by 
experienced Christians, meets the deepest sense of want 
in the soul. It produces a sense of dependence, humility, 
and love to God, and has given hope and joy, in life and 
in death, to Christian hearts in all ages. 

Now, adaptation is from God. God cannot produce 
holiness of heart by a falsehood. Truth is known by 
its effects. As God is true, that which glorifies God and 
does good to man at the same time is truth ; therefore 
the evangelical view of the atonement is truth.* 

* See Eph. v, 13. 



236 LIVING QUESTIONS 



CHAPTER VIII. 

INCONGRUITY OF THE SKEPTICAL AND THEOLOGICAL 
PHILOSOPHY OF LIBERAL CHRISTIANS AS REPRE- 
SENTED BY THEODORE PARKER. 

From the time of Dr. Priestley until now, those who 
have departed from the evangelical faith have devised 
various schemes of theology and philosophy, which they 
have presented for the acceptance of the world. Some 
of these have contained good suggestions, and some of 
them criticisms of orthodox views that were needed; 
others have been wanting both in reason and congruity. 

The last of these schemes is that of the late Theodore 
Parker, a writer of unusual ability, and of benevolent 
impulses. His opinions belong to the skeptical side of 
Unitarian or Liberal Christianity. He was recognized, 
during his lifetime, as an exponent of the opinions of 
his class ; and although his influence upon the denomi- 
nation is, perhaps, waning, still his works are the latest 
and most popular of the attempts to set forth a new 
theology and philosophy in regard to the knowledge of 



OF THE AGE. 237 

God and human duty. We have adopted his book as 
the best and latest exhibit of the theology of skeptical 
Unitarians. 

In making an analysis and criticism of Mr. Parker's 
Unitarian scheme, we will note some passages in his 
" Discourses of Religion." They will sufficiently indi- 
cate the character of liberal theology, and warrant any 
language which may seem to be severe in the ensuing 
paragraphs.* 

Sentiment of God. 

This writer says, " The religious sentiment does not 
disclose the character, and much less the nature and ob- 
ject, on which it depends." 

Again, "The sentiment of God, though vague and 
mysterious, is always the same in itself." 

Idea of God. 

Again, we are told that " the idea of God comes of 
the joint and spontaneous action of reason and the reli- 
gious sentiment." 

Again, " The idea of God as a fact given in man's 
nature, and affording a consistent representation of its 
object, is permanent and alike in all." 

* See Dis. of Eel., pp. 18, 24, 27, 29-95. 



238 LIVING QUESTIONS 

Again, we are told that "The idea of God is perfect 
only when the conditions are complied with/ 3 — but, in 
a majority of cases, " the conditions are not complied 
with." 

Conception of God. 

Again he says, " The conception of God, as man ex- 
presses it, is always imperfect."'' 

And again, " The conception of God is of the most 
various and evanescent character, and is not the same in 
any two ages or men." 

And again, "The conception which man forms of 
God depends on his character." 

The unreason of these passages, taken together, is 
equalled only by other " utterances" of like character 
which follow them in the same volume. 

First, we are told that the mind of man has three 
different apprehensions of God, which are spoken of as 
sentiment, idea, and conception. Now if we suppose 
all these to exist at the same time, as this liberal Chris- 
tian evidently does, the notion is a positive absurdity. 
They might exist consecutively, combined with a doubt 
which were right ; but that they should exist simultane- 
ously as separate apprehensions, is contrary to the laws 
of mind. If they could exist simultaneously, the one 
apprehension would nullify the other. One would be 






OF THE AGE. 239 

various and false, the other permanent and true ; while 
a third would be mysterious and always the same. 

But if these succeed each other, which is first, and 
which is most influential ? Mr. Parker tells us that the 
conception of God is different in all men, and always 
imperfect. Does this "conception" obliterate the idea 
which is given as a fact in man's nature ? Of what 
benefit is a true idea if it be obliterated in all men by a 
conception which is utterly false? Besides, how can a 
sentiment, the same in all, and an idea which is a fact 
given in man's nature, ever be varied or perverted by a 
conception which is different in all men? This senti- 
ment, idea, and conception is a sort of trinity never 
before thought of; not a trinity in unity, but a trinity 
in antagonism existing in the same mind. 

If man is conscious of these three different appre- 
hensions of God, either in connection or in succession, 
why does he not choose one of them? But if the idea 
is a fact given in his nature, then he cannot obliterate 
from his mind a true knowledge of God. And again, 
would not the " vagueness" of the sentiment be dissi- 
pated by the definiteness of the idea, or the force of the 
conception ? 

But we are told " that the idea of God comes of the 
joint and spontaneous action of reason and the religious 
sentiment" — (action of a sentiment?) — and again, " that 



240 LIVING QUESTIONS 

this vague and indefinite sentiment, combined with 
ignorance and fear, leads to superstition." And then 
again, "men can by reason get but an imperfect knowl- 
edge from nature ;" yet from a vague and mysterious 
sentiment and imperfect data, a Being of wisdom, 
power, and love, is derived by the reason. 

But strange enough, in immediate connection with 
this, the idea of God is said to be " a fact given in man's 
nature, which affords a consistent representation of its 
object, permanent and alike in all." Thus it is at the 
same time an intuition, given as a fact in man's nature, 
permanent and alike in all, while yet it is the result of 
a rational process, predicated upon a vague sentiment 
and imperfect data. 

But strange again, we are told in the same chapter 
that this idea, which is permanent and alike in all, " de- 
pends upon conditions which, in a majority of cases, 
are not complied with." How can a fact which is the 
same in all, depend upon conditions? Or, if the fact 
be unknown until the conditions are complied with, how 
can any man rationally comply with the conditions of 
the unknown ? The transcendentalist must solve such 
difficulties for his friends by intuition. They are with- 
out the limits of reason. 

But the conception of God, as we have been informed, 
is very different from either the sentiment or the idea, 



OF THE AGE. 241 

"It is of the most various and evanescent character, and 
is not the same in any two ages or men." This con- 
ception of God, we are told, " depends on a man's char- 
acter ;" that it is bad or good as a man is bad or good ; 
and that it is " always imperfect." But subsequently we 
hear something very different of this conception. Our 
author analyzes it, and finds in the evanescent and im- 
perfect conception, which is never the same in any two 
men, what he denominates the perfect character of God. 
He says, "At the end of the analysis what is left ? 
Being — Cause — Knowledge — Love — each with no con- 
ceivable limitations. To express it in a word, a Being 
of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness. Thus, by an 
analysis of the conception of God, we find in fact, or 
by implication, just what was given synthetically by 
the intuition of the reason." 

Now, as we were taught that the character of the con- 
ception depends on the character of the man, and that it 
is never the same in any age or in any two men, whose 
conception has the author analyzed ? And if he finds 
this result in one case, according to his own authority, 
he will certainly find a different one in every other case. 
And as conceptions have an objective origin, how can 
an analysis of a conception give an intuition as its result? 

But this is not all the author has to teach on the sub- 
ject of the Divine nature and the Divine character. 

L 21 



242 LIVING QUESTIONS 

Such vagaries as the following occur farther on in the 
same volume : 

" God cannot be personal and conscious as Joseph and 
Peter, and yet impersonal and unconscious as moss," etc. 

" God is the substantiality of matter !" 

" God is the materiality of matter." 

" God is universal being." 

This is pantheism run mad. If God is substantial, 
and material, and universal being, he must be devel- 
oped into all specialties, such as doves and snakes, 
eagles and alligators, porcupines and pelicans. 

Again, " God is infinite motherliness," and " is imma- 
nent in all things." 

" The things of nature reflect his image, and make 
real the conception." Yet the conception, we are told, 
is of the most various and evanescent character. 

Again we are told that " w T e can only know God 
through self;" but, strange to say, the contrary of this 
is likewise true, for we are informed that " there is 
nothing but self' between us and God." 

Even these are not the worst passages as specimens of 
rationalism. There are others in which transcendental 
verbiage becomes worse than ridiculous. As for ex- 
ample : " Nature, which is the outness of God, favors 
religion, which is the inness of man; and so God works 
with us. Heathens knew it many centuries ago." 



OF THE AGE. 243 

Suppose some one should affirm that this is not true, 
and postulate its antagonism thus : " Conceited reason, 
which is the upness of materialism, favors diluted moon- 
shine, which is the inness of transcendentalism ; thus 
mental charlatanism works with eccentric minds, and 
men of discernment knew it years ago." In all the at- 
tributes of nonsense, the first paragraph is more than a 
match for the second one. I am almost ashamed to put 
such rhodomontade upon paper, but I am more ashamed 
of my countrymen, who hear and laud it. 

There, are, likewise, in this book evidences of malig- 
nity toward the sacred writers and the orthodox faith, 
which I am sorry to see, and which give a darker hue 
to its spirit than that given by conceited or erratic in- 
tellect. The writer speaks of the Evangelists as " dull 
evangelists," who may have thrust their own fancies into 
the mouth of Jesus ; and again he says Christ did not 
call Peter "a false liar, as he was." 

Now, that a man can write in this way concerning 
those whom Jesus called his friends and disciples, 
and commissioned to be the founders of the Christian 
Church, and concerning one who willingly atoned for an 
error by penitence and martyrdom, is an indication of 
hostility so distinct that it is painful. It may not seem 
so to the skeptical Unitarians, but it will seem so to 
every one who is in sympathy with the spirit and prin- 



244 LIVING QUESTIONS 

ciples of Christ and his apostles. It may be said that 
Christ spoke of Peter as a tempter, and admonished him 
of his errors. Bat the language of admonition and re- 
buke serves a purpose. The language of malignity, when 
no good end can be subserved by it, is a different thing. 

Variations and Contradictions in the Theological Opin- 
ions of Skeptics and Transcendentalists. 

How is it that some intelligent men tolerate dogmatic 
assertion and crude philosophisms in such writers as 
Emerson, Parker, and all those of that ilk, while on the 
same subject they require in others mature and accurate 
thought ? It is possible that in relation to some things, 
the teachings of Christ may not be fully nor clearly ap- 
prehended, even by those who receive and obey his in- 
struction : thoughtfully to examine those teachings is, 
therefore, lawful and proper. If there be objections to 
the views of Christians, let them be distinctly and fairly 
stated, and upright minds will hear and weigh the rea- 
sons alleged by objectors. If men have a better system 
to propound, let them show it, and old errors will vanish 
in the light of newly-developed truth. Let those who 
do not discriminate between good sense and pompous 
pretence, stand agape in the presence of theological bra- 
vado and assertion ; but no thoughtful man should accept 



OF THE AGE. 245 

crude dicta from any one on a subject of serious moment, 
and accept it with little or no examination. 

Note, therefore, in verification of these allegations, 
whether there be any evidence of crude and contra- 
dictory thought in the teachings of such popular writers 
as Emerson and Parker. 

Mr. Parker affirms that " Christianity is the absolute 
religion," and that Jesus taught absolute religion to men. 
Now this is obviously true, and when rightly considered 
it is absolute evidence, not only of the Divine origin, 
but of the Divine nature, of Christianity. Christianity 
teaches absolute obedience to God. It reveals infinite 
love in Christ. Love can reach an expression no higher 
than is given in the crucifixion. It is in Christ stronger 
than death, hence it is absolute. The Fatherhood of 
God, the brotherhood of men, are taught in ultimate and 
absolute terms. Filial obedience becomes absolute when 
we love God with all our heart; and righteousness is 
absolute when we love our neighbor as ourself. There 
can be nothing different, nothing better, nothing further 
in morals and piety than the example and teachings of 
Christ : hence Christianity, as expressed by the life and 
teachings of Jesus, is absolute and ultimate religion. 

We may affirm that Christianity is absolute in another 
sense. It is perfectly, and alone, adapted to promote 
the highest good of men. If received and obeyed in 

21* 



246 LIVING QUESTIONS 

the spirit of its Author, it combines as much of happi- 
ness and active usefulness in the life of its recipient as 
his constitution will permit. Let it be allowed, then, in 
the accepted sense, that Jesus taught the absolute re- 
ligion. In this the true Christian rejoices. This the 
writer affirms ; but yet, as we shall see, he makes his 
own statement both nugatory and ridiculous. He says, 
in the beginning of his book, that " the religious senti- 
ment does not itself disclose the character, and still less 
the nature and essence of the object on which it depends." 

Again, "The sentiment of God, though vague and 
mysterious, is always the same in itself. " Farther on, 
we are told that " Christianity can be no greater than the 
religious sentiment, though it may be less." The abso- 
lute religion of this rationalist is no greater than a vague 
sentiment that does not itself disclose the character of 
God — "and it may be less." Verily, liberal disciples 
are in the way of getting a queer idea of " the absolute 
religion" taught by Jesus. 

But furthermore, there is not only one, but there are 
several judges to aid in deciding that " Christianity is 
the absolute religion." 

We are informed that " Christianity is to be judged 
of by the religious sentiment — by other forms of re- 
ligion, and by reason." Strange enough, this — a religion 
to be judged by a vague sentiment that does not give 



OF THE AGE. 247 

the character of God ! Christianity does give the char- 
acter of God. How shall it be judged by a sentiment 
that does not ? How shall facts be judged by a senti- 
ment? But the writer's absolute religion is not only 
to be judged by reason, which is well enough if he means 
enlightened reason, but it is to be judged by other re- 
ligions. We supposed the absolute was the judge of all 
else ; but all else is said to judge the absolute. 

We are told, again, of a peculiarity of the absolute 
religion which it is said Jesus of Nazareth taught. He 
says of Christianity, — 

" It is not a system of theological or moral doctrines, 
but a method of religion and life. It lays down no posi- 
tive creed to be believed in — commands no positive action 
to be done. It would make man perfectly obedient to 
God, leaving his thoughts and actions for reason and 
conscience to govern." 

We have, then, an absolute Christianity which is a 
method without theological or moral doctrines. What 
does the writer intend to do with his theological doctrine 
of the religious sentiment ? He tell us, too, at the close 
of his book, that he wants " real Christianity, the abso- 
lute religion, preached with faith, and applied to life." 
Faith in what? A doctrine is a rule of faith and prac- 
tice ; but if " Christianity has neither theological nor 
moral doctrine" in it, and requires neither faith nor prac- 



248 LIVING QUESTIONS 

tice, how can it be preached with faith ? — how applied 
to life ? Does not Mr. P. mean a transcendental rather 
than an absolute religion ? We think this must be so, as 
the same author teaches in another volume, that a man 
may be religious and not know it. 

Mr. P. tells us that his absolute religion is a "method 
of life according to conscience and reason." But a man's 
conscience is as his faith ; and we are told that the abso- 
lute religion of Mr. Parker prescribes no creed to be 
believed. The method, then, must be very various; and 
it cannot be a method of any particular value, for our 
liberal philosopher tells us, in another place, that "many 
a savage, his hands smeared all over with human sacri- 
fices, shall come from the east and the west, and sit down 
in the kingdom of God, with Moses and Zoroaster, with 
Socrates and Jesus." The worst method in the world, 
then, will answer the same end as this writer's method. 
And then we are told that method is all there is of 
Christianity ! 

Our author's " absolute Christianity," then, is a re- 
ligion no greater, but which may be less, than a vague 
religions sentiment. It offers nothing to be believed. 
It commands nothing to be done. It is a method' of 
life ; but any other method, even a human sacrifice, will 
answer the same end ! 

There are other definitions of " absolute Christianity," 



OF THE AGE. 249 

some of which are better than the foregoing. It would 
be wrong to pass them without notice. In one place 
we are told, religion is " perfect obedience to the law of 
God, revealed in instinct, reason, conscience, and the 
religious sentiment." The Mormons have this phase of 
the absolute, putting instinct first, as Mr. Parker does. 

There is another definition which approaches the 
circle of sense, and if the author would accept that 
" faith which works by love," his definition on this 
page might be accepted. He says, u Absolute religion 
is perfect obedience to the law of God," — " perfect love 
to God and man exhibited in a life allowing and de- 
manding a harmonious action of all man's faculties so 
far as they act at all." This is orthodox, and it is a true 
saying though a little blind as to its import. This is a 
very different thing from the absolute religion on an- 
other page, which proposes nothing to be believed, and 
requires nothing to be done. 

Then again, we have something just the opposite of 
what is said before. We are told that " Christianity 
differs from other religions in its eminently practical 
character." Agreed, my dear sir ; eminently practical, 
certainly, if we take the life and teachings of Christ as 
its exponent. Let us forget the error and folly of 
" nothing to be believed and nothing commanded," and 
listen to the voice of the Master calling us to faith and 



250 LIVING QUESTIONS 

duty — a Go ye, therefore, teach all nations, baptizing 
them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of 
the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things 
whatsoever I have commanded you : and lo ! I am with 
you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen." 

How different the intent, the thought, and the spirit 
of this commission from the theological vagaries over 
which we have passed ! Here we have the doctrine of 
the Trinity — one Name, yet three persons in that one 
^ T arae ; men to be baptized into that tri-personal Name, 
and taught to " observe all things that Christ had com- 
manded," with the promise annexed of the spiritual 
presence of Jesus : " Lo ! I am with you alway, even 
unto the end of the world." 

Personality of God. 

The skepticism of our times, like its talented preachers, 
is popular in many circles of well-informed people. I 
call it skepticism, because, while it assails the generally 
received faith of evangelical Christians, it offers no 
comprehensible system instead of the faith it labors to 
destroy. It begets doubt, but it produces no conviction 
that is influential upon the heart and will of men. It 
is, therefore, skepticism ; and if the Christian religion is 
a benefit to mankind, which all admit, then those who 



OF THE AGE. 251 

introduce doubt or something worse in its stead, are evil 
doers. 

This skepticism is popular in some instances, because 
it assumes the attitude of reform, and therefore com- 
mends itself to minds of humane and progressive ten- 
dencies. It is popular in a wider sense with many who 
desire to retain the name of Christian while they refuse 
obedience to Christ. In the name of Jesus it denies the 
Divine authority of Christianity ; whether a man re- 
ceive or reject the Gospel, he is a Christian : — he that 
believeth shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall 
be saved. Such a system has the elements of popularity 
in it with all sorts of men, except those who maintain the 
Scripture doctrine, that repentance and faith in the Lord 
Jesus Christ produce holiness, and therefore are the 
conditions of eternal life. 

But does this modern phase of skepticism commend 
itself to the reason of fair-minded men? Should the 
doubts which it encourages concerning the foundational 
truths of revealed religion be entertained ? Let us put 
into the balance of reason some of its utterances, 
and weigh them against the doctrines of the Christian 
faith. 

It is noticeable, that while the writers of the skepti- 
cal school, such as Emerson and Mr. Parker, adopt 
language which speaks of God as a personal Being, they 



252 LIVING QUESTIONS 

likewise write many passages which make the impres- 
sion that there is no personal God ; or none that can be 
called personal in any comprehensible sense. On this, 
as on other subjects of the most grave interest, one may 
find on one page of their books a distinct recognition of 
truth, while in another place the same truth is perplexed 
by doubt, nullified by contradictory expressions, or ren- 
incomprehensible by words as innocent of any particular 
import as moonshine is of caloric. 

We have noticed, in a preceding letter, the peculiar 
philosophy in relation to the " idea," " sentiment," and 
" conception" of God. Now, if any disciples of the 
liberal school suppose that by this teaching they know 
anything about God as a personal being, there are 
several passages in the same volume that will correct 
that mistake at once. It had been said that all men have 
an idea of God ; but, according to other passages, if any 
one believes that he knows anything about God, either 
as a personal or a conscious Divine Being, or that he has 
any comprehensible " idea" whatever on this subject, it 
is all a mistake. Notice this in the following passage 
in " Discourses of Religion :" 

" We talk of a personal God. If thereby we only 
deny that He has the limitations of unconscious matter, 
no harm is done. But our conception of personality is 
that of finite personality, limited by human imperfec- 



OF THE AGE. 253 

tions, hemmed in by time and space, restricted by par- 
tial emotions — displeasure, wrath, ignorance, caprice. 
Can this be said of God ? If matter were conscious, as 
Locke thinks it possible, it must predicate materiality 
of God, as persons predicate personality. If it mean 
God has not the limitations of our personality it is well. 
But if it mean that He has those of unconscious matter, 
it is worse than the other term. Can God be personal 
and conscious as Joseph and Peter — unconscious and 
impersonal as moss or the celestial ether ? No man will 
say it. Where, then, is the philosophic value of such 
terms ?" We affirm that this is not only directly con- 
tradictory to what was said before, but that there is 
neither philosophy nor sense in it. 

Our author, as we have seen, analyzes the conception 
which he says men form of God, and finds in it " power, 
wisdom, and love/' without limitation. Now, if the 
idea of personality in God must be limited by human 
imperfection, why not wisdom and love thus limited? 
There is contradiction in affirming the one and denying 
the other. So that, if it is affirmed that God is not 
personal in any comprehensible sense, then the writer 
must affirm, according to his own showing, that God is 
neither wise nor unwise, good nor evil, in any compre- 
hensible sense. To affirm personality of God as an in- 
finite being is, as we shall see, more rational than to 

22 



254 LIVING QUESTIONS 

affirm wisdom or love of Him, because the human idea 
of moral character, without revelation, is imperfect; but 
the idea of personal identity is absolute, and always the 
same in all beings. 

There are some things which are the same in them- 
selves, and the same forever. Truth must be the same 
to all intelligent beings, so far as known to them. Two 
and three are five with God as they are with Joseph and 
Peter. Self- consciousness cannot be one thing in God, 
and another thing in man. The absolute truths of the 
universe, when known, must be the same to all beings 
that have a moral nature, or else the moral universe is 
founded on the principle of discord. Personality is an 
absolute truth ; it is an intuition. We conceive of it in 
God as distinctly as we know it in ourselves. 

The reasons annexed to the above paragraph are 
about equal to the reasons annexed to transcendental 
statements on some other subjects. So far as there is 
any reason in the matter, the author's idea is, that be- 
cause God cannot be affirmed to be impersonal and 
unconscious as the moss and the celestial ether, therefore 
He is not personal nor conscious. If the argument 
were good for anything, then, as two opposite charac- 
teristics are instanced in the objects named, instead of 
proving that God is neither conscious nor unconscious, 
personal or impersonal, it would prove that He is both 



OF THE AGE. 255 

the one and the other. The foregoing passage is written 
in the phrase of blank pantheism. 

Furthermore, it is admitted by the writer that man 
is a personal and conscious being, and that matter is not 
personal or conscious. It is conceded that personal 
agents and impersonal objects do exist. To deny this 
would be to deny the validity of both sense and reason. 
Now, if it be a fact that personal and conscious agents 
do exist, separate from impersonal and unconscious 
objects, why may not God exist as a proper, personal, 
and conscious Being, separate from, and ruling over, the 
kingdoms of nature ? Is man a personal and conscious 
being, while God has a mixed identity — conscious and 
unconscious at the same time? To argue that because 
one man is white and another is black, therefore George 
Washington could be neither a white man nor a black 
man, would be the exact counterpart of the author's 
reasoning when he utters the nonsense, that because 
personal agents and impersonal objects both exist, there- 
fore God is neither, or that He is both. 

To doubt of the personality of God, and His conscious 
separateness from matter, is to plunge the human reason 
back into the blindness of an atheistic philosophy. The 
wisdom of the ancients, of which Plato is the highest 
exponent, after ages of discussion, reached the conclusion 
that plan was before organization, a designer before a 



25ft LIVING QUESTIONS 

construction. And if there be such a thing as an intui- 
tion,* which we ought to admit, notwithstanding the 
word is sadly abused by the transcendentalists, this is 
one : the designer is before and apart from the design. 
Man is conscious of designing, and then of moulding 
unconscious matter into the forms of the mental arche- 
type. We are so made, that it is not possible for any 
one to perceive clearly the marks of design in any ob- 
ject, without the accompanying conviction that plan was 
before the construction. Whether we call this convic- 
tion, intuition, experience, or a logical deduction, the 
result is still the same; common reason teaches every 
man, what philosophy sanctions as the result of her most 
profound inquiries, that a designing cause is before and 
apart from a designed effect. Reason affirms design in 
nature. To write skeptically, therefore, concerning the 
conscious personality of God, as these writers do, is a sin 
against reason and philosophy, as well as against common 
sense and religion. 

But there are scientific facts, ascertained beyond ques- 
tion, which should dispel the vague notions of those who 
speak of God as the " materiality of matter," and as 
being " inseparable from nature." An extract from 
" God Revealed in the Process of Creation, and by the 

* An intuition is a necessitated deduction of the reason from ascer- 
tained knowledge. 



OF THE AGE. 257 

Manifestation of Christ," will, I think, show that the 
idea of a God who is neither conscious nor unconscious, 
in the common acceptation of language, is no more in 
consonance with the facts of science than it is with the 
deductions of right reason. 

The "Natural Development" theory, which argues 
that nature has been advanced from lower to higher spe- 
cies by some law or power which is inseparable from the 
material universe, and which has developed itself from 
inanimate matter, up through an ascending series from 
the lowest to the highest genera of things, issues itself 
in an utter absurdity. "God is inseparable from na- 
ture," says the author of the u Vestiges." To this agree 
multitudes of others, many of whom know little or 
nothing of the scientific basis of the argument. 

And now let us notice some legitimate results of this 
theory, supposing it to be true. The whole subject is 
discussed at length in the volume referred to.* The 
following is a passage from chapter viii : 

"When it is said 'God cannot be separated from 
nature,' while at the same time He is affirmed to be the 
'author and sustainer of nature/ the import must be, 
according to this theory, that God has exercised no per- 
sonal act of creation or control, since gravitation first 
affected the material which formed our system ; or if the 

* God revealed in Creation and in Christ. 
22* 



258 LIVING QUESTIONS 

theory be confined to the earth, then no creative act has 
been put forth by the Maker since the first organic cell 
was formed, and that was not formed by a Divine au- 
thor, but by law. God is declared to be { Nature.' It 
is said that He is inseparable from nature, and that 
nature is the manifestation of God. Hence, as a logical 
necessity, natural phenomena, organic and inorganic, 
manifest all the God that belongs to this theory. 

"If, then, God be inseparable from material nature 
now, He has been inseparable from nature in all the 
geologic periods of past progress. Then what follows ? 
Why this : Reason is a product of material develop- 
ment ; hence, before the existence of organic forms, there 
was no reason in existence; none, at least, in any wise 
connected with our planet. Intelligence was developed 
from lower susceptibilities up to higher instincts, and 
thence up to the human mind. Then, as a necessary 
sequent of this doctrine, it follows that, at early periods 
of creative progress, intelligence did not exist, and if 
God cannot be separated from nature, then before na- 
ture produced intelligence there was no intelligent God. 
During the Saurian Age, the lizard-mind was the highest 
in existence ; and if there be nothing above and separate 
from nature, then the fish lizard-god was, in the second- 
ary geological series, the supreme being ; or at least the 
supremest being that acted in connection with the earth. 



OF THE AGE. 259 

"But is it said that not only the laws and beings of our 
earth, but the laws and beings of our whole system, or 
of the universe, are included in the idea of l progressive 
development/ and that with this enlarged conception 
God cannot be separated from nature ? Now, admitting 
the idea to be expanded, then, if God cannot be sepa- 
rated from nature, He is in different stages of develop- 
ment in the universe at the same time. He is in different 
stages of development at the same time in our solar sys- 
tem, as the earth is in a different stage of progress from 
the moon ; thus, in either view, the idea is an absurdity. 

" The legitimate ultimatum of any theory that recog- 
nizes the law of progressive development in creation as 
a power developing new and higher species out of lower 
ones, and which affirms at the same time that ' God is 
nature' and ' inseparable from nature/ thus placing Di- 
vine interposition out of the question, the ultimatum of 
such a theory is, that as law has produced new species 
progressively from the mollusk to the man, so the future 
will be as the past, the latter product rising above pre- 
vious ones, until the laws of nature will create a God, 
instead of God creating nature. 

"What a rest to the soul is the rational, philosophi- 
cal, and scriptural view, compared with such Atheistic 
monstrosities ! A true science predicates matter and 
its properties in the beginning ; force developed and 



260 LIVING QUESTIONS 

laws instituted by the dispositions of matter; organic 
life and progress from lower to higher forms ; that 
progress in nature effected by natural forces and laws 
as Divine instrumentalities ; the method of advance by 
the abatement of lower and the evolution of higher 
species adapted to advancing mundane conditions ; 
the whole produced, advanced, and controlled by laws, 
and in accordance with a plan, which bears the im- 
press of a Supreme Creator and Governor of the 



There are, likewise, moral considerations connecting 
themselves with this subject which add to the diffi- 
culties of skepticism, while they accumulate proofs of 
the personal existence of the Divine Being. 

Reason can account for things as they are, only upon 
one of three theories. 

1. Chance, or the undetermined succession of events, 
in which nothing is settled, but everything happens 
fortuitously and without design. 

2. An omnipotent fate or law, sometimes called ne- 
cessity, or the necessity of things, which causes and de- 
termines each event to exist invariably as it does ; and 
which must thus cause all events in matter and mind 
forever. 

3. A supreme intelligent Creator and Lawgiver, who 



OF THE AGE. 261 

governs the universe by laws adapted to the nature of 
things. 

The first of these theories needs no discussion. The 
second theory has been proposed by skeptical inquirers 
ever since the birth of philosophy. It is still held 
in some form by Atheists, by materialists, by those 
who believe in a law-soul of the world ; and more re- 
cently, by some who seem to believe that the machine of 
the universe being started, its own impulse produces all 
phenomena and all results which are exhibited in the 
worlds of matter and of mind. 

Supposing this theory to be true, what do we learn 
concerning the moral character of God, and the condi- 
tion and prospects of man ? 

He who doubts the existence of a personal God, is 
placed by that doubt in a peculiar position before his 
own consciousness : — he is a creature without a crea- 
tor, a child without a father, and an effect without a 
cause. But leaving laconics which need explanation, it 
will not be denied that man is a mortal and 'dependent 
being. He did not cause his own existence, and he is 
liable at any moment to suffer detriment in mind and 
body by laws or circumstances 15ver which he has no 
control. If there be no personal God who administers 
a moral government which differs from the allotments 
of nature, then man is plainly the victim of a power 



262 LIVING QUESTIONS 

that is malignant in its nature. Call that power what 
you please, the " substantiality of matter/ 7 as Mr. Par- 
ker would say ; or the impersonal nature of things, as 
Mirabaud and Compte would assert. A personal God 
separate from nature, being ignored, then the nature of 
things is a power, man is subject to that power, and that 
power in its relation to man is evil per se and evil in 
development. If this blind power be called God, it can 
be described by adding a single adjective to the defini- 
tion of materialists. "God, neither personal nor imper- 
sonal, conscious nor unconscious," — but malignant. 

In order to see the ground of this affirmation, notice in 
connection with it the phenomena of conscience. If all 
things occur by a force of nature, or by any impersonal 
force operating through nature, a man should suffer no 
more for an evil act than a good one. If a parent were 
to force or even influence his child to do a certain action, 
and then punish him for doing it, such a father would 
be a monster. It has been replied to this, that a man 
suffers compunction of conscience because he believes an 
act to be wrong, and thus believing, it is righteousness 
in the nature of things which causes him to suffer for 
it. But evidently this reply only removes the difficulty 
one step further back. According to this system, a 
man's faith, good or bad, is produced as much by a force 
of nature and circumstance as his actions ; hence, the 



OF THE AGE. 263 

compunction of conscience is still the result of a neces- 
sitated antecedent. Nature, therefore, which attaches re- 
morse to an act which she herself produces, either im- 
mediately or by a chain of causes, is just as malignant 
as a parent would be if he influenced his son to do a 
wrong action and then punished him for doing it. If 
man be a voluntary moral agent, and sin a moral evil, 
the office of conscience in admonishing of sin and de- 
nouncing the sinner, is an evidence of the mercy and 
justice of God. But if man be not a personal agent, 
if God be not a Personal Sovereign, the conscience is 
not only a mystery, but a malignity. 

It is, moreover, a law of man's moral nature that the 
more he loves evil, and the more frequently he sins, the 
less he suffers from the inflictions of conscience. If, 
then, there be beyond this law of nature no God who is 
the moral governor and judge of men, then this nature 
of things is evidently malignant, because many men 
grow more selfish and wicked till they die, and the more 
evil they become the less remorse they feel for sin. Na- 
ture thus makes sin the way of life. Despots succeed in 
crushing out light and liberty by banishing the master- 
spirits of the age, and shedding rivers of human blood, 
as those heartless adventurers the Bonapartes and, I had 
almost written, some of their despicable American biog- 
raphers. And yet thousands of widows and orphans 



264 LIVING QUESTIONS 

suffer thousands of times more in consequence of their 
evil acts than they do themselves. Who dare say that 
if this be the work of nature beyond which there is no 
God, that nature is not malignant? In charity we ac- 
cept some of Mr. Parker's best definitions as his prevail- 
ing idea of God ; but when he becomes a materialist with 
Mirabaud, or a pantheist, or law-soulist with Chambers 
and Compte, then, instead of writing down his imper- 
sonal God as " knowledge, love, power," he should write 
power, law, malignity. 

But furthermore, and finally and conclusively, unless 
the Maker has incorporated a falsehood into the human 
soul, man is a free, responsible agent, and God is a per- 
sonal moral governor. Man is so constituted that he 
cannot feel guilty for wrong, unless he is conscious that 
he was voluntary in the wrong act. If, therefore, he is 
not the responsible cause of his own moral action, God 
has placed a lying witness in his soul. 

But look again at the irrefragable testimony which the 
human consciousness gives of the responsibility of man 
and the personality of God. Man is actually so consti- 
tuted, as a moral being, that obedience and gratitude can 
be exercised only toward a personal being, a being who 
personally and voluntarily does us good. Can man be 
grateful to the bread that satisfies his hunger? Can he 
love and obey something that is neither personal nor 



OF THE AGE. 265 

impersonal in any comprehensible sense? The thought 
is preposterous ! Unless the moral nature of man be a 
lie, produced by malignity, there is a personal conscious 
God, to obey and love whom is the life and adaptation 
of the human soul. 

Is it not ridiculous, as well as preposterous, to think 
of the author of this book expatiating upon the nature 
of God, with the exhortation to love and obedience 
which must follow ? He says, my hearers, " God is the 
ground of nature — He is what is permanent in the pass- 
ing, what is real in the apparent." " God is the mate- 
riality of matter," so " He is the spirituality of spirit." 
But "He is neither personal nor conscious, like Peter and 
Joseph, nor impersonal and unconscious like the moss or 
the ether." " The greatest religious souls can say with 
an old heathen, ' Since God cannot be fully declared by 
any one name, though compounded of never so many ; 
therefore He is rather to be called by every name, He 
being both one and all things/ " The preacher then 
adds an exhortation, thus : " As I have always told you, 
my friends, love and obedience to God is the duty and 
happiness of man. You have heard my description of 
' the dear God. 7 I enjoin upon you to love and obey 
The Materiality of Matter, the All Things, the Spirit- 
uality of Spirit, the neither personal nor impersonal, 
conscious nor unconscious God. Yea, my hearers, I say 
m 23 



266 LIVING QUESTIONS 

unto you obey it ! It is immanent in all things — in the 
blush of the rose and in the bite of the dog — in the 
breath of the breeze and in the howl of the maniac. 
Remember, too, our party ' calls religion nature/ be- 
lieves i the Divine incarnation is in all mankind/ ( asks 
no forgiveness for sin/ therefore we will imitate the 
Divine incarnation, and if we sin we will ask no forgive- 
ness. Amen and amen." 

Now, if this be preposterous, it is so because it is 
an application of Unitarian Rationalism in the light of 
common sense. If any one says that passages are so 
clustered together as to make them seem preposterous, 
we' deny the impeachment. Other results may be ob- 
tained by inferences from other passages, but the above 
is a fair and unavoidable result from one class of passages 
written in this volume. 

And besides, there are single passages which are as 
preposterous in themselves as these are put together, 
and not only in this volume, but they are found in 
nearly all this class of writers. In one of his Ten 
Sermons, for instance, the author says of a fly, " Lo ! 
here I am an individual and conscious thing, sucking 
the bosom of the world." This is certainly hyper- 
bole run mad; and is just about as ridiculous as it 
would be to say of Mr. Parker, " Lo ! there he is, 
an individual and conscious philosophist, sucking trans- 



OF THE AGE. 267 

cendentalism from the great toe of the — man in the 
moon." 

Such nonsense produced by men of ability, capable 
of writing eloquently, sensibly, and consistently, is only 
another evidence that without faith the mind is like a 
ship without ballast, driven by contrary winds. Let us 
turn away from such hallucinations — hallucinations that 
mingle the evil and the incongruous with the good, and 
rejoice together in the evidence that, above the laws 
of nature, there presides a Supreme, Personal God, the 
Parent and the President of the universe. 

There are moral evidences derived from the nature of 
man, besides those to which we have alluded, that affirm 
the Divine personality — evidences in which all good and 
thoughtful men will rejoice together, although the doubts 
and difficulties interposed by skeptics were a thousand- 
fold greater than they are. God exists as a personal 
being with moral attributes : He is just, 

1. Because He has connected the monitions and reproofs 
of conscience with actions known to be wrong. 

2. Because if conscience be not heeded, it leaves the 
transgressor to grow hardened in evil — evil which in 
itself is incipient penalty, and which being voluntarily 
persisted in becomes confirmed in the character of the 
transgressor. 



268 LIVING QUESTIONS 

3. Because motives to good, if obeyed, become more 
influential ; if disobeyed, less so. 

4. Because the moral constitution is so formed that the 
more sinful men become the more blind they become, 
both to the evil and the desert of sin. 

5. Because evil is not only linked with sin and pen- 
alty here, but while it brings present evil it also forms 
an evil character in the soul, which secures future evil. 

Finally, God is good, 

Because love is happiness and life, and He has made 
the soul so that its best good consists in a life of love to 
God and to men. And as love begets love God becomes 
immanently personal in Christ, in whose sacrifice He 
reveals Divine love, and thus by faith love is begotten, 
and the law of love is fulfilled in all " who walk not 
after the flesh, but after the Spirit." 

Is not such evidence, and the known practical results 
of the Christian faith, a satisfaction to the reason and a 
joy to the heart, while the brilliant vagaries of skeptical 
thinkers are empty and evil continually ? 
Yours very truly, 

J. B. W. 



OF THE AGE. 269 



CHAPTEE IX. 



The discussions concerning the position and privileges 
of woman should not be ignored, because there are those 
who, in the name of "woman's rights/' seek unwise or 
impracticable ends. 

The parental and marital rights of women should be 
protected by proper legislation, where such rights are not 
now fully protected. Wages should be granted to all 
sexes and ages in proportion to the value of the service 
rendered, and to women, in some cases, beyond the service 
rendered. Opportunity should be granted to all to en- 
gage in professions and employments not inconsistent 
with sex and the relations of individuals to society. But 
there are difficulties in adjusting even these proper claims 
of women ; and there are claims made for women as 
rights, which, beyond question, would work great wrong 
if they were achieved. 

As in all other cases, the advocates of woman's rights, 
both wise and unwise, set out with the plea that all 

23* 



270 LIVING QUESTIONS 

reforms are resisted in the beginning ; hence a good plea 
is made a reason with some for urging reform into de- 
formity. Others claim, in the name of advancing civil- 
ization, acceptance for schemes that would retard progress 
and react upon those who are making wise efforts for 
the good of women, as the weaker, and hence, in some 
respects, the worthier division of the race. 

The introductory Dispensation of Moses, although "it 
made nothing perfect," recognized, in various ways, the 
natural and social province of the sexes. Those of one 
sex who wore the apparel of the other were declared to 
be " an abomination unto the Lord." The New Dis- 
pensation not only emancipated woman from the imper- 
fect divorce laws to which she was previously subjected 
by the law of Moses, but in spiritual benefits she became 
the peer of man. " In Christ Jesus there is neither Jew 
nor Gentile, bond nor free, male nor female." The free- 
dom of association in religious service is attested not 
only by the presence of women, but by the voice of 
women in the devotions of the early churches. But 
while this freedom and elevation of women is achieved 
by the Gospel, there is that care which characterizes the 
work of God, both in nature and grace, that the mod- 
esty of nature, and the dependence of the sexes, should 
not be violated. 

Woman is assigned her proper place, both in devotion 



OF THE AGE. 271 

and service, as in the case of Phoebe, the deaconess ; but 
the propagation of the Gospel and the public service of 
the churches were exclusively intrusted to men. Jesus 
sent no women with the Seventy, or with the Twelve, 
to teach in the synagogues, or preach to the nations. 
The Apostles ordained no women. No women were 
endowed by the Spirit to be pastors, teachers, or evan- 
gelists. These facts should settle the question on the 
subject to which they relate. Some women prophesied, 
but prophecy evidently was understood to be a special 
spiritual communication, not a stated or regular service. 
Women, well-instructed in the truth, taught the younger 
women at home, and the children and youth of both 
sexes were instructed by them ; but they were inhibited 
from public disputation, and from teaching in public 
assemblies. 

"Women prayed occasionally in the social assemblages 
of the primitive church; but they were forbidden to 
pray without being veiled, — the veil being the badge 
of sex in the apostolic age. Badges change, but prin- 
ciples do not. And women should never disregard the 
proprieties of sex in the worship of God, who created 
man, male and female. Unity of spirit in worship does 
not annul natural laws and proprieties. The utterances 
of prayer and experience in devotional meetings by pious 
women often do good ; but posture, gesture, and decla- 



272 LIVING QUESTIONS 

mation in promiscuous assemblies is uncomely and un- 
scriptural; and while good women engage in the one, 
natural modesty and religious meekness will prompt them 
to avoid the other.* 

It is noticeable that in the parables of Christ, where 
women are introduced as laborers in connection with Gos- 
pel progress, home duties are selected as illustrating their 
province and their work. One puts leaven in three 
measures of meal, — illustrating the impartation of Gospel 
instruction and life to the household by those in charge 
of a family. Another sweeps the house until she finds 
the lost piece of money ; that is, she seeks by purity of 
home-life and teaching, the salvation of a child yet un- 
regenerate. The shepherd who has lost a sheep goes 
abroad to find it. The woman who has lost a piece of 
money seeks for it in the house. The aim is the same, 
the province is different. What did Jesus mean by 

* A female writer, who has done much good by a devout life and 
labor, in order to support a theory that hinders rather than furthers 
her work, has misconstrued the Scriptures in regard to woman's 
position as a teacher. She argues that the Holy Spirit, upon the 
day of Pentecost, fell in miraculous tongues upon women as upon 
men. Nothing can be more obvious than the fallacy of this teach- 
ing. It is not possible for an unbiassed mind to read the second 
chapter of the Acts and err on this subject. The miracle took place 
in a public assemblage, probably in a court of the temple, where 
no women were ever present. 



OF THE AGE. 273 

teaching the same thing in two different parables, the 
only difference being the different provinces of the sexes? 
Home labor is for woman, public labor is for man. 

There are some natural laws and moral principles that 
may be safely trusted, as a general guide in settling the 
question of woman's province in the social and political 
world. 

The physical differences in the constitution of the 
sexes cannot be violated, without injury to the violator 
and wrong on the part of those who urge the violation. 
Woman is physically the weaker sex. Women who 
labor in the open air are more robust than those who 
live mostly in the shade ; but they are not nearly so 
strong as men who engage in the same labor, under the 
same circumstances. They have not strength to do or 
endure what men can easily accomplish. In some cases 
the labor would kill the one that only gives proper de- 
velopment to the other. Hence, in the nature of things, 
the province of woman's labor must always be different 
from that of man's labor. When this law is violated, 
women become coarse and lose the feminine graces both 
of form and of mind ; while men, by the same labor, 
attain a robustness that is recognized by both sexes as a 
proper attribute of manhood. Exercise in the open air 
is as necessary for women as for men, but the amount and 
character of the labor will always be different. Where 

M* 



274 LIVING QUESTIONS 

men and women thus unite in out-door labor, man is 
invariably the manager and woman the passive worker ; 
his mind, therefore, loses "no vigor, while hers loses both 
vigor and vivacity ; and her body loses natural grace in 
form and motion. 

Women cannot go to war, nor to the fields to clear the 
lands, which they sometimes cultivate. "They cannot 
build houses, or make railroads or canals, or any other 
public works. They can have nothing to do with the 
commerce of any country, by building ships or sailing 
them. Nor can they engage in managing the public 
interests of the land. All these public labors are inter- 
dicted to women by the laws of nature and civilization. 
The fact that some women have engaged in all these 
employments, argues either an unnatural propension in 
such persons, or an evil in the arrangements of society, 
that rendered such labors desired or necessary on their 
part. 

The same natural law extends to the intellectual 
province of woman. The average brain of woman, 
although of finer texture, is neither so heavy, nor are 
its tissues so strong, as that of man. There are some 
manifestations of mind in which she is superior to 
man. There is more delicacy of feeling, more modesty, 
more sensibility, more love, more vivacity. There have 
been in the same ages, few, if any equals in pathos, to 



OF THE AGE. 275 

Sappho and Mrs. Browning. But the epic or the comic 
are seldom met with in the literary labors of women. 
As God has constituted the sexes, these are not to be 
expected. Where intense study, and long sustained 
effort, as upon the piano, which is woman's instrument, 
is required, man must achieve the accomplishment, and 
become the instructor. In sweetness of voice, and deli- 
cacy of modulation, the woman excels, but the bass 
voice, which is necessary in public speech, is not possible 
to the vocal organs of the woman. If God has indi- 
cated anything in the construction of the vocal organs 
of the different sexes, it is easy for those who seek 
human good to know the Divine will, and it is unnat- 
ural and wicked to urge women to err on this subject. 

]Not only in general structure and in voice, but even 
in clothing and in hair, nature, as well as revelation, 
has distinguished the male from the female. And this 
difference is observable in all species, from the insect to 
the mammal. In the human genus the hair of the male 
is coarse, and grows upon the face as upon the head. 
In all species below man, the clothing of the female is 
distinguishable in form, and often in color. There is 
sin against nature as well as revelation on the part 
of those who urge men and women to transgress the 
laws of nature, and the principles of taste and beauty, 
in the matter of apparel, and wearing of long hair, 



276 LIVING QUESTIONS 

which is the " ornament of women," but " a shame unto 
men." 

The marital differences are another argument against 
the occupancy of the same positions. Man begets and 
woman bears. The declamation of erratic minds can- 
not alter the natural constitution of things; yet this 
constitution makes the province of the two sexes sepa- 
rate, and yet dependent. Whether the creation of 
woman from the flesh and bone of man be allegory, 
fact, or fiction, it teaches a profound truth. Woman is 
the complement of man, and needs the protection of 
man, and the affection of man, even as his own flesh. 
Every true woman, if circumstances do not prevent, 
desires to be a wife and a mother ; the natural conse- 
quences to the contrary notwithstanding. There are 
monstrosities among women ; but in the normal con- 
dition of humanity, " the desire of woman is unto her 
husband." No woman or man fulfils the natural des- 
tiny of the sexes in any other relation; and if social 
reformers would aim at promoting this end, they would 
bring a blessing to their kind. The social law of the 
Moravian Church, which provides for companions for 
each member, is worthy of universal prevalence. He is 
the benefactor of women who aims to construct society 
in such a way that each good woman will have a good 
husband. 



OF THE AGE. 277 

When the home is constituted, that home is most 
happy where there is most unity of affection and will as 
well as unity of interest. Whatever tends to weaken 
this unity in the family brings a curse to the household. 
The sexes were created one, of one ; created one man, 
but male and female ; one united head, as parents of one 
family. So far as unprincipled or wrong-headed women 
and men urge schemes that tend to break the unity and 
peace of home, they do what tends to consign woman 
to harlotry, concubinage, or celibacy ; there is no alter- 
native. 

What, then, are the relative duties, rights, and wrongs 
connected with this marital constitution of the sexes ? 

About thirty years of a woman's life, all the days of 
her unabated strength, she is confined mostly at home 
as a wife and a mother. Health, modesty, mother- 
hood require this, — child-bearing necessitates it. True 
women that have true husbands rejoice in it. During 
this time she must be provided for and cared for 
tenderly by her husband, as she cares for her chil- 
dren. This natural constitution of things precludes 
the possibility of women entering the professions and 
trades, and competing with men for wages or prece- 
dence. It exalts woman above man, in that it gives her 
the highest vocation on earth, the home teacher, but 
it absolutely excludes her from labors that require con- 

H 



278 LIVING QUESTIONS 

tinuecl attention out of her own dwelling, and sometimes 
within it. 

There are some professions and some trades that 
ought to be open to women, and unmarried women 
might fill them sometimes better than the men who now 
occupy them. But every employer knows, when such 
engagements are made, that his best help may accept a 
call to leave her place just at the time her services are 
becoming valuable to him. A man entering the mar- 
riage relation would become more reliable, a woman 
less so. Hence, so long as the male body and brain are 
the strongest, and so long as men alone can be depended 
on for continuous labor, wages will differ. The prin- 
ciples of Christianity, however, would concede to self- 
dependent women the same wages, although, in some 
cases, the service might be of less value. Christianity, 
as before stated, is the complement of Providence, re- 
quiring the strong to support the weak, and those that 
have to impart to those that need ; but the intense appli- 
cation and consecutive labor that church, state, or public 
business requires, is not possible for married women. 

At least three-fourths of the business of man's life 
requires out-door travel of single persons, at all times, 
and in all places, bad and good. In view of this fact, 
surely none but weak and unwise persons would think 
of women as justices, constables, politicians, and legisla- 



OF THE AGE. 279 

tors. The vote, however, implies all these. And would 
not a certain class of women desire places for themselves ? 
and women for constables instead of men? and would 
not certain male parties grant them their " rights," and 
gain their influence thereby ? 

It would be a sorrowful experiment, but in the end, 
perhaps, it would be a benefit, if in some state woman's 
suffrage should be granted. The Gordian knot of the 
Malthusian problem would be solved in half a century 
by such an experiment, if it were to become general. 
Men marry to enjoy the social affections of home. When 
women become politicians and voters, with the attendant 
consequences, there will be few marriages ; and among 
those without Christian principle, the " murder of the 
innocents" will be more common than at present. It is 
known that women of the world, and others destitute 
of conscience, destroy multitudes of their own unborn 
offspring rather than be confined at home or forego the 
pleasures of fashionable life. If this be true now, what 
would be true then ? A reaction would come #n, as in 
the clamor for natural rights in the free-love excitement. 
But such an experiment would cost too much, and the 
demoralization of the sexes would not be retrieved for a 
century. 

It is said that there are weak men, both in mind and 
body, and there are some women who can talk and work 



280 LIVING QUESTIONS 

in public matters better than most men. This is an in- 
genious deception. There are some men that can attend 
young children and do culinary labor better than most 
women, but such exceptions only prove the general rule 
to which they are opposed. Things can be done that 
are unnatural, both by men and women. Some roosters 
cackle, and some hens crow, but what do such exhibitions 
indicate ? 

It is said women might vote without interrupting 
their home engagements, as many men do. But voting 
is only the executive part of the voter's interest. Shop- 
talk and discussion, caucuses, torchlight processions, and 
other matters that need not be named, precede voting. 
It is necessary that there should be two parties in a 
country, and such necessity will exist until the world 
is ruled by truth and justice ; but woman was not created 
for party strife, and it will be a wrong to render her 
connection with it necessary. 

But it will be said that a woman would generally 
vote with her husband, so at home there would be no 
cross-questions or discussions. Granted; but in such 
case the vote would be simply doubled, with no differ- 
ence in the result. Women's voting can make no dif- 
ference in the result of an election only so far as they 
differ from their husbands and relatives. The idea of 
advancing public interest in this way can be predicated 



OF THE AGE. 281 

% 

only on the hope of differences between men and women 
at home. 

It is said that women have rights to protect as 
women, and men cannot impartially maintain these as 
legislators, or, that they will not do it. This is folly. 
To protect the interests of women is as much the inter- 
est of the legislator as to protect the interests of men. 
Are not women's interests men's interests? Do not 
men care for their wives, mothers, daughters, sisters, as 
much as they do for their male constituents? I have 
discharged, to the best of my ability, the duties of a 
law-maker, and I know that the rights of women are 
more sacred in the regard of legislators than the rights 
of men. Men suffer from inadequate wages and from 
want of employment, as do women ; and, while it is 
true that when men suffer women suffer with them, yet 
there is not a legislature in the Union that, in case of 
equal suffering, would not relieve the women before the 
men. Just as in a sinking ship, men will see all the 
women removed from the vessel before they disembark 
themselves. 

" But have not women property to be taxed, and 
ought she not to vote for those who are to tax it? 
Ought there to be ' taxation without representation ' ?" 
This plea is an adroit deception. The taxation is on 
the property, irrespective of whether men or women or 

24* 



282 LIVING QUESTIONS 

♦ 
corporations own it. If there is any property peculiar 
to women as a sex, it will always be taxed lighter than 
any other on the tax list. Taxation without represen- 
tation means only that no species of property in a 
country shall be taxed by a power where the property 
taxed is not represented. A legislature could not enact 
laws for or against the property of women without, by 
the same act, legislating for or against the same species 
of property in men. 

Besides, the ballot, in a free country, is not predicated 
on property. If it were, men would vote as corpora- 
tions and aristocracies do : in proportion to the amount 
of their estate. Such a qualification has been required 
in some instances by some of the States ; but it is a 
wrong principle. The vote is predicated on the poll- 
tax, the ability to maintain agriculture, commerce, and 
manufactures, and the defence of the state when thus 
constituted. 

It is urged, with great confidence, that vices would be 
reformed if the women had a vote, and that the moral 
party in politics would gain by the moral influence of 
the women. If I believed this I should probably be a 
convert to morals as against nature. If women had 
a vote, political necessities, in order to success, would 
urge all women to vote, even when modesty and condi- 
tion forbade the exposure. Ignorant and unprincipled 



OF THE AGE. 283 

women would undoubtedly all crowd the women's poll, 
and vote the saloon ticket, and if the thinking, respect- 
able portion did not go also and vote, the others would 
largely increase Satan's majority. Children, even in 
arms, would not prevent enterprising females of a cer- 
tain class from being at the polls ; and then if more 
retiring women did not go out, nolens volens, the anti- 
conscience party would be a large gainer by the women's 
vote. 

" But would not sober women, who have drunken 
husbands, vote against the husband in favor of a tem- 
perance law ?" Seldom, if ever. A wise wife would 
not try to reform her husband by opposing him in pol- 
itics. It would not be difficult for her to understand 
that it would only drive him farther from her, and 
oftener into the saloon. In nine out of ten cases wives 
would be persuaded before election-day that the temper- 
ance law was an interference with liberty and an incen- 
tive to drunkenness. But suppose the women should 
pass a temperance law, or any law, against the vote of 
the men, who would enforce it? 

When it is said that men, who create and defend the 
institutions of a country, ought to assume the duty of 
managing the machinery of the government, it is re- 
plied, evidently without seeing the non sequitur in the 
statement, " Did not the women in the war for liberty 



284 LIVING QUESTIONS 

do their part as well as the men ?" Yes, they did their 
part often better than the men. But their part was not 
the men's part. As nurses, as hospital dispensers, they 
were better than most of the men thus employed. But 
all the machinery and labor of the government and the 
war — laws, railroads, houses, medicines, conveyance, pro- 
tection — were provided for them, as they should have 
been, by their male protectors. They were taken as 
women, and set down to their appropriate work ; and 
they did it to the credit of their country and their sex. 
To plead such precedents to work a great wrong to 
women by urging them out of their natural position is 
worse than weakness of mind. 

But would there not be a benefit to the state by doub- 
ling the number of voters? There might be benefit 
that I do not perceive, but any one can see that the 
evils would be many. There would be the expense 
of increasing the vote without changing the issue. In 
legislatures a certain number on each side often pair off 
and go home, or do not vote. If fifty leave that are 
equally divided, the vote of the fifty that remain will 
show the same result as the vote of the one hundred 
would have done. "But," says one, "some women 
would not vote with their husbands." A few might 
not, but the vote of the courtesans in the cities would 
far overbalance these. 



OF THE AGE. 285 

Another result would be the introduction of some 
women, not the best ones, with men into public places, 
and the amalgamation of this class of women with the 
same class of men would not produce the best results. 
A legislature, or any assemblage, composed of women 
with no husbands, or of women whose husbands were at 
home with the children, and of men with wives at home, 
or no wives, would work strange results, and attract an 
audience into the lobbies, just as the public speeches of 
women attract an audience to see the speaker. 

" But is not Victoria Queen of Great Britain ? Yes; 
and has about as much to do with devising, or arguing, 
or executing the laws of the realm as the woman in the 
moon. " But there was Catherine of Russia." Yes ; 
whose affections were conquered by her generals ; and 
Mary of England, and Isabella of Spain, and many 
others, good and bad, who were ruled by the priests, all 
of them a tax on the public treasury, while they had no 
more to do with making the laws, or executing them, 
than has the Queen of England. 

When women leave their homes and travel on elec- 
tioneering campaigns ; when they are separated in politics, 
and in law courts, from their husbands ; when marriage 
becomes a partnership; when women are met as poli- 
ticians and controversialists, as the nature of party action 
now requires men to meet, in the hall and in the street, 



286 LIVING QUESTIONS 

the respect which modern civilization requires for women 
will cease, and men will reply to their vituperations in 
terms that they use to each other, and which we will 
not now permit to be applied to our sisters or our wives. 
A vixen writer of marked ability, after telling gen- 
tlemen their duty and prescribing their sphere, scolds 
like a Jezebel, because a writer, who is a husband and 
father, advises women to seek usefulness in home rather 
than in public duties. She forgets that nature deter- 
mines the question of home duties for women, and when 
they are advised by their friends to seek usefulness in 
the family or in some light labor, it is merely advising 
them not to be unnatural in their hearts and habits. 
When a woman does unsex herself, no wise man will 
invite her to be mistress of a home, and a woman who 
has a home will dishonor her husband and neglect 
appropriate duties, if she assumes to discharge the ser- 
vices for which masculine functions are required. The 
man who advises a woman to attempt to sing bass is an 
evil counsellor: either his motive or his mind is wrong.* 

* I was present recently at a meeting of the queer company 
that assembled at the Cooper Institute, to advocate woman's rights. 
A note was read from the editor of the Independent, who is both 
a genius and a radical reformer. The purport of the note was : 
" As I share my loaf with my wife, I am willing to share my vote 
with her." (Since then he has ceased to share the loaf with his 
wife.) Neither Mr. Tilton nor his feminine admirers seemed to see 



OF THE AGE. 287 

The Avriter referred to thinks it a conclusive argu- 
ment in behalf of women going to the polls, that hus- 
bands and wives sometimes choose different religious 
denominations, while their different views and actions 
do not hinder their usefulness or happiness at home. 
The illustration is at fault, and if it were true, the con- 

the shallowness of what was designed to be smart sentiment. Mr. 
T. shares his vote with his wife now, as much as he does his loaf. 
"When his wife votes, he will have a loaf, but no vote to share 
with her. She will have her own vote then : ought she to have 
her own loaf too*? 

When the teaching of the New Testament on this subject is 
spoken of, it is a common remark of opposite writers to say that 
the import of the text is obsolete as the requirements to pray 
for Kings. Charity hopes that such writers do not perceive the 
perversion of Scripture in this oft-repeated solecism. The word 
"Kings" is used only as signifying office, and any other word 
designating official authority, as president or governor, might be 
put in its stead: this the succeeding clause shows. But the instruc- 
tions of the apostles in regard to woman's sphere and woman's 
duties are in the form of special precepts, the predicate of which 
cannot be varied in any respect. "Wives, submit yourselves unto 
your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the 
head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church." Now, 
whatever such passages may mean, we cannot put wife instead of 
husband, and affirm that the husband shall submit to the wife, and 
that the wife is the head of the husband. They mean, at least, 
what nature teaches, that God has constituted the husband the 
controlling will in regard to the general interests of the family. 



288 LIVING QUESTIONS 

elusion drawn from it would be erroneous. It is not 
true that different denominational action is like different 
political action in the heads of a family. In different 
denominations each labors for the same Head of the 
church, and their hearts are united to the same leader. 
If they differed in politics, they would labor for op- 
posing leaders and opposing interests. Besides, religious 
unity, which is strength, is not gained for either denomi- 
nation, and the home division has almost invariably an 
injurious effect upon children. 

There is a certain class of women now sometimes met 
with at the public boarding-houses of the general and 
state governments, whose character is not like that of 
Mrs. Polk, and others who might be named, — women 
whose influence radiated from their homes and was felt 
by the very best class of public men. Nor have the 
women spoken of the character of lady correspondents 
of newspapers, who often maintain a womanly deport- 
ment, while they expose vice and commend virtue in 
high places. They are women with male idiosyncrasies; 
or they are shallow fools, who love to display lace and 
jewelry ; or they come as the stool-pigeons of men who 
have ends to gain. They send their notes ; and novelty, 
as well as courtesy, and sometimes other motives, incline 
members to visit them, or to permit themselves to be 
visited. Under these circumstances the man hears and 



OF THE AGE. 289 

assents to their views, or seems to do so. But this is 
neither well nor wise. Petitions from women, and their 
just claims, whether presented in person or otherwise, 
will always be heard. But a certain class of legislators 
deceive a certain class of women ; and there will always 
be a few ultra radicals and weak minds in a legislature 
who will sympathize with wrong schemes, presented in 
the name of reform. 

. I have known women in the lobby laboring for im- 
practicable or unwise projects. Men would dine with 
them, talk with them, walk with them, assent to their 
projects ; even bring in a bill professedly to accomplish 
their desire, but with the understanding among them- 
selves that it was to be put adroitly out of the way. 
When women s^ek political ends by personal suasion 
with public men, there will generally be either sham, or 
fraud, or sin connected with such negotiations. There are 
thousands of easy minds in the world who sign petitions 
asking suffrage for women ; and there are weak mem- 
bers in the legislature, for the first time, who are inclined 
to grant such petitions, not remembering that nine-tenths 
of the best women in the land condemn both the petition 
and the measure for which it asks. To sign a petition 
for woman's suffrage is to sign a petition against the views 
of all the best women in the country. 

We predict that no such event as women at the polls 
n 25 



290 LIVING QUESTIONS 

will ever take place over any considerable extent of the 
Union. When it does occur, the ballot should be given , 
first to the unmarried women. There is not one married 
woman in a hundred that would accept the ballot under- 
standing the circumstances in which it would involve 
her. If it were forced upon women as a sex, in ten 
years there would be a universal presentation of petitions 
from Christian families to be relieved from the useless 
and injurious operation of a state of things which gave 
profligacy and badly-organized minds the ascendancy, 
and militated against the privacy of the family, the 
duties of a wife, and the modesties of motherhood. 



OF THE AGE. 291 



CHAPTEE X. 



PENAL LAW. 



There is a class of reformers who are moved by their 
sympathies rather than by the reason and justice of the 
case. This class of men and women sometimes become 
dangerous to the well-being of society. They sympa- 
thize with scoundrels, and seek to save them from just 
penalties. They would make the penitentiary a place 
of comfortable retirement for villains, and thus induce 
such a state of things that those who had never been 
there would have no dread of the crime that would send 
them there ; and those who had been there would be 
prepared for any villany, if going back to light labor 
and comfortable quarters were the only consequence. We 
have aided in the enactment of criminal laws and talked 
with criminals on the subject of penalty. A criminal 
dreads the penalty of the ball and chain, or personal 
infliction by stripes, much more than he dreads ordinary 
secluded punishment. To provide for the health and 
moral reform of criminals is proper, but to make their 



292 LIVING QUESTIONS 

penalty a punishment is a duty which it is crime against 
society to neglect. We have had some experience in 
framing legislative provisions and penalties for criminals, 
and I am sure that the policy that makes a penitentiary 
more comfortable in labor and quarters than an honest 
day laborer can afford is a premium offered for crime. 

The persons alluded to may be called instinctive re- 
formers, because their impulses are organic, not moral. 
They frequently misdirect their compassion, because the 
impulse in their case is the highest law. They oppose 
proper punishment, and denounce especially those who 
maintain the justice of the death penalty. They do 
this in common ad cajjtandum phrase, appealing to the 
sense of sympathy, not to the sense of justice. 

ISTow, while it is admitted that none but the wilful 
and deliberate murderer should die, it has not been 
shown that the Scriptures, or the principles of mercy 
guided by justice and reason, would permit the delib- 
erate murderer to live. He has shown himself to be 
the enemy of his race, and should be separated from 
them either by painless death, or by life imprisonment 
without hope of pardon. Legislatures would in some 
cases adopt life labor and imprisonment were it not 
almost certain that through the intervention of sym- 
pathizers, money, or friends the criminal would again 
be let loose in society to repeat his crime. 



OF THE AGE. 293 

There is a vicious sympathy that exercises itself 
towards the guilty rather than the innocent. A sym- 
pathy opposed to the just suffering of criminals is sus- 
picious. It indicates a want of the moral sense of 
justice. Suppose I witness a pirate-ship attack a 
packet and murder in cold blood the crew and passen- 
gers. Immediately after a revenue-cutter attacks the 
pirate and destroys the murderers of the innocent. 
There was as much of animal suffering in the one case 
as the other. But if I feel for the sufferings of the 
pirates as I do for the murdered passengers I am a 
brute, possessing blind compassion without a sense of 
justice; or else I am a pirate at heart, sympathizing 
with like character. This is true in a lesser degree 
when there is sympathy with lesser criminals. 

It is painful to read the remarks of such sympa- 
thizers when they talk mawkishly about the momentary 
suffering of the murderer, while not a word is said, and 
apparently not an emotion felt, in view of the varied, 
protracted, and excruciating sufferings which the villain 
may have inflicted upon his innocent victim. 

It is an error to place the mercy of the New Testa- 
ment in antagonism to capital punishment. The Scrip- 
tures recognize an abatement in severity and frequency 
of penalty, as light and civil security increase in the 
world. Efforts to prevent crime and reform the crim- 

25* 



294 LIVING QUESTIONS 

inal will increase with the advances of Christianity; 
but the cardinal principles of the Christian Scriptures 
recognize the rectitude of the voluntary suffering of 
individuals, when it is necessary for the good of the 
whole, and of penal infliction when necessary as penalty 
for violated law. Even the death-penalty is recognized 
as proper when executed as a penalty for crime worthy 
of death. Paul says, " If I have done any thing 
worthy of death, I refuse not to die;" thus implying 
that such crimes were possible, and such penalty proper. 
The Mosaic institutions were for a peculiar people, in 
the initiatory stages of civilization, — a migratory people 
with whom frequent and severe penalties immediately 
inflicted were necessary, — but the Great Teacher sanc- 
tioned the death-penalty under the law of Moses, and 
thereby taught that taking life as a penalty is not wrong 
in itself. Hence the true inference is that while it may 
be proper under the Gospel to abate the death-penalty in 
all minor 'cases of crime, and perhaps in the end substi- 
tute therefor life-labor without hope of reprieve, yet 
the infliction of the death-penalty on the part of society 
can never be shown to be wrong in itself. Jesus said to 
the Scribes and Pharisees who had abrogated the death- 
penalty in the case of the drunken, stubborn, and re- 
bellious son, that cursed his parents and could not be 
reformed, Matt, xv, "God commanded, saying, Honor 



OF THE AGE. 295 

thy father and thy mother, and he that curseth father 
or mother let him die the death ; but ye say otherwise, 
and thus make the commandment of God of none 
effect." 

The ultimate principle, admitted by all, is that as life 
is the highest individual good, it should be protected by 
the highest penalty. If no other than the death-penalty 
will so certainly protect the life of the innocent, then 
those who would spare the life of the murderer do so 
at the expense of the life of the innocent. Now, it has 
never been proved, and cannot be, that in the present 
state of society, imprisonment for life is a security 
against future murder by the condemned. A criminal 
was condemned by a jury to be hung for deliberate 
murder in the State of Ohio a few years since. This 
penalty was commuted to imprisonment for life. In 
less than three years afterwards he was pardoned; and 
for the Crimes he has since committed the sympathizers 
with this murderer are particejps criminis. 

Commutation, or sentence to life imprisonment, en- 
dangers witnesses both before and after trial. A man 
of- fifty commits a theft. He knows an imprisonment 
of ten years will follow the proof. Will he not thus 
be bribed to murder the witness ? His penalty for both 
crimes can be no greater than that for the least; and if 
he murders the witness he hopes to escape. Will not 



296 LIVING QUESTIONS 

the discontinuance of the death-penalty transform most 
thieves into murderers? That it has done so in many 
cases is in evidence in confessions and in criminal courts. 
If men commit the murder it is only imprisonment for 
a longer term, and that penalty doubtful ; if they kill 
their victim his testimony is impossible, and chances of 
escape are greater, while the penalty is in many cases no 
greater. Will it not take away from the public mind 
an impression of the sanctity of life, and thus in the 
estimation of villains decrease their sense of the guilt 
of murder? A virtuous community will punish the 
guilty. An immoral community will punish them by 
impulse or not at all. The remission of the death- 
penalty has produced in Wisconsin, and is now pro- 
ducing in some other States, many unlawful outrages. 
The conscience which God has given men says the mur- 
derer should die. Nature has thus taught men in all 
ages. Among all people, civilized and savage, the 
death-penalty is inflicted for murder. When an im- 
moral philanthropy remits the death-penalty, natural 
conscience is outraged, and men rise in mobs to inflict 
vengeance upon the murderer. 

The pleas usually urged against the death-penalty 
have slight foundation either in morals or in reason. 
It is said that in some cases the innocent suffer death, 
and no remuneration can be made. So they may suffer 



OF THE AGE. 297 

imprisonment for life, and no remuneration can be 
made. Imperfection may attach to all law and penalty 
that is based upon testimony ; but even this possible 
evil might be guarded against by sentence of imprison- 
ment, without pardon, when doubt of the fact were 
possible. 

It is said, again, that society, when it takes life for 
life, commits the same crime with the malefactor. 
Shame on such solecisms ; then when we confine a mur- 
derer for life, we commit a crime equal in guilt to that 
of the criminal. When society takes a certain sum as 
penalty from a man who damaged his neighbor, it com- 
mits the same offence with the criminal ; if there were 
a society of criminals for the promotion of crime, such 
arguments would receive a premium. 

But it is sometimes said that life is sacred, it ought 
not to be taken in any case ; it can be forfeited only 
to Him who gave it. The statement is false in fact and 
in theory. If any man were attacked by an assassin, 
with deadly weapons, and with the known intent to kill, 
it would be his duty to save his own life by taking the 
life of the murderer. Now, is not life forfeited as much 
after the act as before? It is certain the guilt is as 
great, and that justice and universal conscience would 
affirm the same penalty after, as before the fact. 

It is said society is guilty in view of the imperfect 



298 LIVING QUESTIONS 

provision made for the moral and intellectual training 
of the masses of the people. If our school systems are 
inadecpate or partial, they should be reformed and 
strengthened ; but this while it would prevent the de- 
velopment of evil, in many cases, would not prevent 
crime. It is a fallacy to argue that the absence of 
remedies used to prevent an evil is the cause of that 
evil. If the argument were true, all who have inade- 
quate intellectual and moral training would be alike 
criminals, which statement is false and slanderous. 

It is said, again, by the philosophers of the Fowler 
school, that the propensity to crime is organic ; that crim- 
inal acts arise from the unbalanced impulsion of certain 
cranial developments, and that therefore the criminal 
should be an object of pity rather than a subject for 
penalty, because his impulse is natural. If this be true, 
then the Calvinistic system, which these reformers take 
pains to deride, is true in its utmost stringency. If this 
were true, then murderers should be exterminated for 
the same reason that we kill a viper or a tiger. Both are 
the natural enemies of human life; and reform in the 
one case would be just as possible as in the other. And 
to kill both the criminal and his children to prevent the 
natural propagation of crime, would be right. Such a 
philosophy ignores reform efforts of all kinds. Reform 
in that case would be possible only by knocking in the 



OF THE AGE. 299 

evil developments on the head. The Fowler philosophy, 
which has a share of truth in it, perpetrates the error of 
all superficial thinking. It takes facts, true only as a 
general expression, and derives particulars from them. 
It likewise applies its principles wrong-end first. It 
makes development govern mind instead of urging the 
true thesis, that it is the character of the mind that pro- 
duces the peculiarities of development in the whole body. 
The seed produces the tree, and the tree produces like 
seed. A bad spirit produces bad developments. The 
law of creation and of philosophy agrees with the Scrip- 
tures that " every seed produces its own body, and ' so 
it will be in the resurrection/ " 

But it is argued that murderers dread imprisonment 
for life as much as they do the gallows. All facts, and 
all consciousness in all men, deny this assertion. If this 
be true, why do criminals and their friends seek a com- 
mutation of penalty ? Why do all murderers joyfully 
accept commutation? Even the devil conceded the 
falsehood of this statement when he said,* " All that a 
man hath will he give for his life." 

Penalty is designed to prevent as well as to punish 
crime. The death-penalty is the highest restraint that 
can possibly be opposed to murder. Murder is unlike 
all other crimes. It is the crime of crimes : but it can 
never be distinguished as such without inflicting upon 



300 LIVING QUESTIONS 

the murderer the highest penalty. By the death-penalty 
the murderer is taught to value the life of others as he 
does his own. This is the golden rule, and this rule 
can be. applied to no other penalty for murder. Unless 
death be the penalty, a villain meditating crime can 
never value the life of another as he does his own. By 
the imprisonment-penalty he is taught to value the life 
of his neighbor as little as he values imprisonment in 
the penitentiary. Who wishes to teach murderers this 
low estimate of life?* 

It is said that facts and statistics prove that imprison- 
ment is a remedy as effectual in preventing murder as 
the death-penalty. This is not proved, and I believe it 
is not true. Facts, so far as they go, prove the contrary. 
The instances alleged in favor of abolishing the death- 
penalty, those of Catherine of Russia and the govern- 
ment of Tuscany, were of too short duration to prove 
anything. On the other side, we have the case in the 
German States, where the statistics are accurate, and 
sufficient time for a fair experiment has been allowed. 
The " Conversations-Lexicon," a work of the highest 
authority concerning German topics, says, " Those States 
where, from a one-sided benevolence, the government 

* If capital punishment is continued, the means of execution 
should be painless, — by chloroform, or some similar agency. The 
present method is barbarous. 



OF THE AGE. 301 

wished to abolish capital punishment, were compelled 
again to avail themselves of it, and that on the ground 
that in the opinion of men, death is the greatest of evils, 
in preference to which they would willingly undergo 
the most laborious life, with some hopes of escape 
from it, because the death-penalty is the most terrible 
of penalties." 

Wordsworth, a man of the most highly-endowed in- 
tellect, the purest and the warmest benevolence, in the 
London Quarterly Review, says, " Whenever it appears 
to be good for mankind, according to the arrangements 
of Providence, that death should be inflicted by human 
ministrations, it is a false humility, a false humanity, 
and false piety, for a man to refuse to be the instru- 
ment." * 

Robespierre, it is said, resigned his office in early life 
rather than sign a warrant for the execution of a crimi- 
nal. He exhibited a nature sympathetic to criminals, 
but his future life showed him to be a monster, desti- 
tute by nature of the sense of justice. 

The following passage in Blackstone, Book IV, 
chap. 1, should not be forgotten. Although the statute 
has been modified by more recent enactments, the his- 
torical verification is the same : " In France the pun- 
ishment of robbery, either with or without murder, is 
* See Cheever on Capital Punishment. 
26 



302 LIVING QUESTIONS 

the same; hence it is that though perhaps they are 
subject to fewer robberies, yet they never rob but they 
also murder. In China murderers are cut to pieces, but 
robbers not ; hence in that country they never murder 
on the highway, though they often rob." Is not this 
satisfactory proof that the man, or the legislature, that, 
through sympathy with criminals, aids to abolish the 
death-penalty, thereby stimulates villains to murder the 
innocent ? 

If this is not sufficient, take a fact nearer home. 
Capital punishment was abolished several years since in 
Michigan. The grand jury of Wayne County, in that 
State, made a presentment to the legislature, in which 
they say, " Facts, we are informed, have occurred in 
our midst, proving that some of the murderers in this 
county have been influenced and urged forward to 
their deeds of wickedness through the consideration 
that the death-penalty has been abolished from our 
penal code." 

Much might be added, showing that in the present 
state of society imprisonment for life is often a bribe to 
commit murder ; especially in the case of those connected 
with oath-bound secret societies ; in other cases it is no 
penalty ; and in all cases it places the murderer where 
no further penalty for crime is possible. He may 
murder his keeper ; he may poison the prison well, and 



OF THE AGE. 303 

thus murder all the inmates ; his life is sacred, and he 
is above law ; no further penalty can be inflicted. 

The Bible nowhere teaches that wilful murderers 
ever exercise repentance unto life. The case of the 
thief on the cross is not in point. The condemned 
man had known Christ before his trial, and had prob- 
ably repented of his sin. He believed in Christ as his 
Lord, and in his spiritual kingdom beyond death. 
This faith he could not have obtained on the cross. 
"No murderer hath eternal life abiding in him." That 
murderers repent no one doubts. Judas repented and 
went to "his own place." Repentance is either selfish 
or holy. If it is repentance in view of the consequence 
to one's self, it produces remorse or deceives the mind. 
Every criminal repents when the hand of the sheriff is 
on his shoulder. This is forced repentance. It is the 
murderer's repentance. It is not honest repentance. 
It is "repentance unto death." Holy repentance is 
produced by faith in Christ. 

Some, I know, believe that true repentance in such 
cases is possible. If it be possible, the death-penalty is 
much more likely to produce repentance than the pen- 
alty of imprisonment. Dr. "Webster, the Boston mur- 
derer, while there was hope of escape or commutation, 
maintained the falsehood that he was innocent. When 
sentence was passed, and pardon or commutation denied, 



304 LIVING QUESTIONS 

he became penitent and truthful. In "Beniis's Ke- 
port" of Webster's last conversation with the sheriff he 
says, " All the proceedings in nay case have been just. 
The court have discharged their duty. The law officers 
of the commonwealth did their duty and no more. The 
verdict of the jury was just. The sentence of the 
court was just; and it is just that I should die on the 
scaffold in accordance with that sentence." Thus does 
the sentence of death, when there is no hope of escape, 
produce in some cases, honest repentance. As in Web- 
ster's statement that his sentence was just, and that he 
deserved to die, we have the same evidence given in 
many other cases when the crime is confessed. It is the 
decision of the human conscience, one which ought not 
to be violated, that the man who deliberately takes the 
life of his neighbor forfeits his own. The man who 
from sympathy with criminals, refuses to award this 
highest penalty to the highest crime, manifests a cor- 
rupted sympathy, rejects the decisions of the conscience, 
and the conviction of human reason in all past ages, 
and in some cases strengthens the hands of the guilty 
against the innocent. 



OF THE AGE. 3Q5 



CHAPTER XL 

HARMONY OF GENESIS AND GEOLOGY. 

There is an error incorporated into the expositions 
of all who have endeavored to harmonize the facts of 
geology with the cosmic visions of Moses, — an error so 
damaging that its removal will be a relief to all students 
who have felt the difficulty on the old hypothesis of har- 
monizing Genesis and Geology. Theologians, Geolo- 
gists, and Harmonists have accepted the doctrine that 
the first verse of Genesis speaks of the creation of the 
heavens and the earth, and that the omnific act men- 
tioned in this verse should be detached, as belonging to 
a period preceding the days of Moses. The six Mosaic 
divisions of creation would then start from a point where 
the earth is spoken of as being " without form and void." 
This construction, while it gives an indefinite period for 
the creation of the earth, presents insuperable obstacles 
to a fair harmony between the revealed cosmogony of the 
Bible and the ascertained facts of Geology. The diffi- 
culty is in the fact that the vegetable garniture of the 

26* 



306 LIVING QUESTIONS 

world is the first organic life in the visions of the seer, 
while we know that previously to the subsidence of the 
waters from the first areas of dry land, invisible life was 
abundant in the primeval universal sea. Theologians 
and scientists are responsible for this difficulty ; the Bible 
is not. It does not teach that the day-periods of Moses 
began after the close of the first verse, nor at the middle 
of the second, but at the middle of the fourth verse. Thus 
construed, the phraseology from the second to the middle 
of the fourth verse gives clear indications of the exist- 
ence of palseozoic life, invisible in the sea, anterior to 
the carboniferous series. By this exegesis the difficulty 
in the harmony is not only removed, but geological re- 
searches confirm the Bible statement. The attempts to 
reconcile Scripture with Mature at this point, on the first 
verse theory, even by so trustworthy a harmonist as 
Hugh Miller, are evidently forced and untenable. We 
cannot relieve our mind of the sorrowful thought that 
an unwelcome sense of this discrepancy aided to unsettle 
one of the best minds of the present age. 

The correctness of our construction, that begins the 
day-periods of Genesis at the middle of the fourth verse, 
is so obvious that it will gain the assent of any one who 
will carefully examine it. The phraseology admits of 
no other interpretation. The preceding words, "God 
saw the light that it was good," is the phrase that indi- 



OF THE AGE. 307 

cates the end of a period in the earth's progress from a 
chaotic state to its present condition. The first life- 
period in the universal sea is not included in the six days, 
but was closed before the beginning of the six progressive 
creative periods of Moses. From that point a new ad- 
vance is initiated. The next period, which is the first 
day of Moses, begins with the division of light from 
the darkness. After this division, which did not begin 
until after the close of the first period, the Light is called 
Day, and the Darkness Night. No day existed until 
this division ; hence the six days of the Mosaic develop- 
ment can extend no farther back without a violation of 
the plain sense of the text and the reason in the case. 
To speak of a day before day was made, by the division 
of the Light from the Darkness, would be unreason. 
The first Mosaic day-period, therefore, begins at the 
middle of the fourth verse of the first chapter of Genesis. 
Every person who assumes that the Mosaic periods 
began earlier than this applies the term Day to a period 
when there was no day. Twilight probably existed, 
caused by the lurid light emitted by the volcanic fissures 
in the thin crust of the earth and seen through murky 
clouds, but day-periods did not. Thus the Bible gives 
scientists an indefinite period of palaeozoic life anterior 
to the garniture of the dry land by the first flora. 

Now, having excluded by a true exegesis the whole 



308 LIVING QUESTIONS 

palaeozoic period, whether that terminate with the begin- 
ning or the end of the Devonian series, what evidence 
is there that the Bible gives clear indications of what 
geologists have found to be true in regard to the other 
periods mentioned in Genesis ? 

The statement is made by Moses, contrary to anything 
that could possibly be imagined by the human mind, 
that there was light before the sun appeared in the 
heavens. This statement the generally-accepted views 
of geologists now verify. 

We are told that "the Spirit of God," recognized 
every where in the Sacred Writings as the Life-Giver, 
" brooded (the Hebrew sense being incubated) over the 
face of the waters." This can mean nothing less than 
the production of life-germs in the primeval universal 
sea. This earliest existence of the first forms of life, 
geology proves to have been a true statement ; so that if 
geology teaches a science, the author of the Cosmogony 
in Genesis taught science before geology. 

The question that remains is, Does Moses likewise, 
so far as scientific researches inform us, give a correct 
statement of the succeeding advances in the earth's his- 
tory, during the six days succeeding palaeozoic time in 
the life-period which preceded the first day ? After the 
division of the Light from the Darkness, which was the 
first day, the second-day period of Moses was the process 



OF THE AGE. 309 

of clearing the atmosphere of its load of vapor. Sci- 
ence has given us but little satisfactory information 
concerning the origin or the evolution of the gaseous 
envelope that surrounds our globe. The Bible tells us 
that there was a time when the vapors that surrounded 
the earth were dense and covered its entire surface ; that 
while the sunlight penetrated these vapors the luminary 
itself was not visible, and that succeeding to this period 
there was a firmament developed, so that the vapor-clouds 
above the earth were divided from the waters that cov- 
ered the surface by a firmament, or " heaven/' thus sep- 
arating the cloud- water from the surface-water. That 
such a process ensued, as stated by the prophet, and that 
its period, or day, was the one immediately preceding 
the elevation of large areas of land in the Carboniferous 
Period, is beyond question. The statement of Moses is 
true if geology is not false. 

After the Light and Darkness were separated — per- 
haps by the revolution of the earth — the darkness that 
succeeded the sun-setting in the evening, and the light 
ensuing upon its rising in the morning, would be observ- 
able. Still the dense atmosphere and the dense vapor- 
clouds would give but a twilight to life in the waters. 
There is strong corroborative evidence of the degree of 
illumination in this early period, in those strange articu- 
lates the trilobites, which were multitudinous in the 



310 LIVING QUESTIONS 

earliest life-periods. Some of these extinct animals had 
prominent eyes which could receive light in comparative 
darkness ; others were eyeless, like the fish in the Mam- 
moth Cave of Kentucky. There could be no clearer 
indication of the degree of illumination at this remote 
period. 

Another corroborative fact that the atmosphere first 
became life-sustaining about this period is the predomi- 
nance of a genus of ganoid fishes ; the first air-breathers 
created in the strata of this period. They have an ap- 
paratus similar to an air-bladder opening into the mouth, 
thus endowing them with an imperfect form of lungs. 
Thus the first air-breathing creatures synchronize with 
the period when the atmosphere, according to Genesis, 
first separated the waters which are in the clouds above 
the earth from the waters upon its surface. 

The third period of Moses is the elevation of large 
areas of dry land and the production thereupon of a 
dense endogenous flora. At this point the subdivisions 
of the Cosmogony in Genesis, in regard to the marked 
events of mundane progress, are more accurate than 
those of Geology. The features of the Devonian and 
Permean in Geology are badly defined. The period 
called the Devonian — which synchronizes with the 
elevation of continental areas of land in Moses — we 
know was characterized by vast disruptions and changes 



OF THE AGE. 31 1 

of level in the earth's crust. This was the process 
which Moses speaks of as the gathering together of the 
waters into seas, and which caused the dry land to ap- 
pear, moist and warm, and thus prepared for its enor- 
mous growth of plant life. Moses conjoins the two 
periods, and geologists, when further informed, will do 
the same. In the previous period shallow water had 
covered the earth with very limited exceptions. The 
" gathering together" of the waters indicates a gradual 
process; while on the new land, inhaling a super- 
carbonated atmosphere, the tree-plant life was developed 
which constitutes the Carboniferous beds and deposits. 

The appearance of the heavenly bodies as " set in the 
heavens/' is declared in Genesis to have taken place 
during the fourth Day-period. There is some data by 
which this period can be located geologically. When 
the vapor clouds were dispersed from the atmosphere, 
geology may not accurately define. One thing, however, 
is certain : the superabundant carbonic acid which had 
existed in the atmosphere at the beginning of the Car- 
boniferous period was, during that period, locked up in 
the immense coal measures of that series of rocks. If 
Tyndall's view of the effect of carbon in the atmosphere 
then existing be correct, he has aided to verify the state- 
ment of Moses. The w T ithdrawment of the excess of 
carbon from the atmosphere to the coal beds, would do 



312 LIVING QUESTIONS 

what was adapted to unveil the sun and the moon, whose 
light before had fallen on an atmosphere rendered dense 
and heavy, and only semi-pellucid by reason of the 
preponderance of carbonic acid gas. 

Daring the fifth Day-period, huge creatures of rep- 
tilian form were inhabitants of the sea, the land, and 
the air. These are affirmed, by both Genesis and Ge- 
ology, to have given the preponderating aspect to the 
period. The facts stated in the Bible, that birds were 
introduced during this period, at the same time with 
the tanim, or marine saurians, is striking, because in sur- 
veying the present creation, about the last idea that 
would possess the mind, is that birds could have any 
connection, in origin or nature, with marsupials and 
marine lizards. Yet the Bible affirms the fact, #nd 
Geology now explains it by revealing to us that instead 
of the plumed songster and feathered denizens of the 
air and water which exist in our time, a genus of birds 
akin to the Saurians of the Mesozoic age, were intro- 
duced at that time. Thus another of the apparent in- 
congruities of Revelation is at last verified and illus- 
trated by the geologist. 

The sixth period in the series of creation, according 
to Moses, brings into being the present orders of ani- 
mals and places Man at their head. The question will 
occur to the thoughtful, Why does Moses make a series 



OF THE AGE. 313 

at all f How did he know that creation had progressed 
in a series of mundane changes, and advancing species 
of animal organisms ? And as he presents a series, how 
is the fact to be accounted for that it is accurate as a 
Cosmogony ? Geology agrees with Genesis that up to 
the period when Moses declares the work of the Creator 
" finished," there was a serial introduction of advancing 
species. We live in the Seventh Period, when it is said 
" God rests from creating." Thus far all the researches 
in natural history, fossil or living, accumulate evidence 
on the side of " rest" in the creative process. If, sub- 
sequently to the "finish" of Moses, anything superior 
to man has been created, the scientists have not yet 
discovered the advanced being. 

If the preceding results are correctly deduced from 
Biblical and Geological data, fair-minded Scientists and 
Theologians will consider them; and instead of con- 
tempt on the one side, and apology on the other, they 
will accept a better way to settle the questions at issue. 
And instead of the apologetic statement that the Bible 
was not given to teach men science but religion, they 
'will examine the evidence, and inquire whether it does 
not teach both. If there be a science of mind, and a 
Bible containing a manifestation of the Divine Charac- 
ter, the one must be scientifically adjusted to the other, 
o 27 



314 LIVING QUESTIONS 

Hence the Bible, if preceding deductions are correct, is 
itself a book of moral science, revealing progressively 
the Divine Character, and advancing co-ordinately the 
Human Character. To this test will the discussion con- 
cerning the truth of the Eeligion revealed in the Penta- 
teuch and the New Testament come at last. 

And admitting that these views are only partially ac- 
curate (which we do only to state the case), the Scientists 
have a difficult problem to solve, in order to maintain a 
good basis for further doubt in regard to the vision of 
the seer in Genesis. If the Bible Cosmogony agrees 
with the geological, then Moses must have derived from 
Egypt, or incorporated from pre-Semitic sources, the 
accurate cosmogony given in the Book of Genesis. If 
not thus informed, the admission is compelled that the 
writer was an Inspired Seer. This is the next problem 
for learned inquirers in this region of study. As at 
present informed no such knowledge existed, either in 
Arabia, or in the valley of the Nile or the Euphrates 
previously to the time of Moses ; nor can we see how in 
the archaic age of hieroglyphics, and local and errone- 
ous knowledge of the earth, such knowledge could have 
existed. Hence if Moses had stated no more than that 
the surface of the earth was first covered by a universal 
sea, and that series of animals were created before the 
present species of animated life, he would have done 



OF THE AGE. 315 

something that could have been suggested to no human 
mind, reasoning from the present aspect of creation. If 
there be prophetic vision that sees in symbols the Un- 
known Future, it is not difficult to believe that it may 
penetrate the Unknown Past, as well. 



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Lippincott's Pronouncing Biographical Dictionary. 

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Allibone's Dictionary of Poetical Quotations. 

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Furness's Concordance to Shakespeare's Poems. 

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Lempriere's Classical Dictionary. 

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